Hide And Seek (2010)

Episode 197, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd. 

Craig: And I’m Craig 

Todd: It’s slow. We’re smack dab in the middle of the Christmas month, Christmas month. And so of course, as always, we’re looking for Christmasy horror films. And this week we found a woman that I wonder if many of our listeners have ever even seen before I happen to stumble across it on Netflix.

I was looking for Christmas movies and this movie called hide and seek from 2010 came up and I looked at it and. It wasn’t immediately obvious that it was a horror movie, but upon further review, I could see, Oh, this is a slasher film, but it’s Indian. So I thought, wow. I don’t know. I’m Craig. Have you ever seen any Indian movies before?

Any Bollywood type films? 

Craig: I don’t think so. I know. Seen clips and scenes, but I don’t think that I’ve ever actually sat down and watched a full Bollywood film. And so I was actually kind of looking forward to this, cause I know it’s a big deal. You know, like Bollywood I think brings in a lot of money in India and in other parts of the world.

You know, it’s a. As the name would suggest. It’s very similar to our Hollywood, and so yeah, I, I haven’t seen much, but I was looking forward to it 

Todd: when some ways I’m around the world, it’s even, it can, it’s arguably even bigger than Hollywood, or at least a super close second as far as influence. Um, number of people that watch it.

Of course, India is a highly populous country. It’s also been said that Indians like movies more than anybody else. They just go to the cinema a lot. Now, all of this is hearsay, secondhand information stuff I’ve read online. I’m definitely not an expert in Bollywood, but what I have read is that if you go to the cinema in India is quite an affair.

It’s loud, it’s noisy, there’s lots of food, and then you usually, all of these movies have songs in them. Yeah, and, and I can kind of attest to the few of Bollywood films I’ve seen. I’ve seen romaine, I’ve seen like long kind of Epic three hour family dramas. I’ve seen romance stories, I’ve seen comedies, I’ve seen like one that was a super agent type film, like a James Bond thing.

Every single one of these, at some point. Multiple points during the movie. There are songs, and we’re not talking like, like a musical, like in the U S where the song kind of advances the plot or you know, there’s kind of singing about what they’re doing. Not necessarily often it’s just they stop and there’s this really long song and dance.

Number where everybody just breaks into these synchronized dances and it’s a little, it seems weird. It’s its own thing, but it’s highly entertaining. I mean, it’s really quite quite cool. I guess it’s just as absurd as people breaking into song for any reason, really in the middle of a story. But then people that are usually when they go to the theater, they already know these songs, like the songs for the latest movies are like playing on the radio, or they get really, really popular.

And the songs will often drive people to the movie theater to see the movie. And so it’s sing along our. For a lot of folks in the theaters when they go see these movies. So. I was actually expecting to, maybe I thought, Oh gosh, this will be really interesting if we have this like slasher movie and they break into song and dance in the middle of it.

Right. It didn’t happen, 

Craig: sadly. 

Todd: So what was interesting about it, and. I think this is kind of what came up in a few of the things that I read online is this is almost a first attempt. I mean, I hesitate to say that because I don’t know for sure, but at least it was a pretty one of the more earnest recent attempts to actually make a Hollywood style sort of slasher mystery type film in India.

With the Indian actors in the Bollywood system. So they tried really hard to mimic or imitate this sort of movie and they did it. But definitely with these Indian characteristics that, uh, that I thought were quite interesting and are going to be fun for us to talk about, even if, I don’t know, how did you care for the movie?

Craig: I dunno, you know, when you recommended it, I looked it up on Netflix and like the still frames that accompany the. Listing, they looked pretty good. I mean, it looked pretty high quality, and when I started watching it, I was initially intrigued. There was some interesting stuff going on. Ultimately, I don’t think that it, uh, it wasn’t really for me.

You know, it, it felt a little copycat. Ish. And that’s so not fair. That’s so not fair for me to say as a horror movie reviewer, you know, like there are so many movies that follow similar tropes. But, um, this one had like major, major shades of, I know what you did last summer and other. Revenge type movies like that.

It did have some interesting twists, which I appreciated. I found it to be a little bit predictable, but you know, it wasn’t bad. I didn’t think it was terrible. There. I, there are going to be things that I’m going to be critical of, but I don’t know. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I didn’t like it. Um, but anyway, we’ll get into it as we go.

Todd: Yeah. Well it is a Christmas movie cause it does end up taking place in the Christmas time. The credit sequence opens up with the, your sort of typical newspaper clippings on a wall with things circled and you know, ominous stuff sitting on tables and whatever it looks like a serial killer who’s planning some big event.

You know, his, his layer has. 

Craig: As CSI board or serial killer board, 

Todd: either a detective or the people that are looking for, it’s one of those two and but it’s intercut with some carefully chosen scenes of what we learn is flashback. Um, just some stuff that has happened among a group of five friends in the past.

Craig: Well, and it’s all very quick cut to like, yeah, so you don’t know what’s going on. Like you see some like joyful kind of party scenes, and then you see somebody doing a line of Coke and then you see. Some violence, but it’s all so quickly that there’s no way that you can piece it together. But it’s kind of dropping hints as to what happened at this party, which, as you said, ends up being in the past in the context of the movie.

But that’s how. It opens up. We open up, I mean, we don’t know in the moment that it’s the past, but after we see these initial scenes, then it cuts to 12 years later, and that’s where we spend most of our time. 

Todd: Yeah, and the movie kind of focuses around this guy named OAM, who’s a young guy. I put him at like late twenties early thirties I guess.

Yeah. And he wakes up, there’s some pills and a snow globe behind him. He seems a little distraught, and his aunt walks in and starts talking to him and through their conversation you start to realize that he is more recently, I guess back from an insane asylum or some kind of asylum. She says, do you know what day it is?

And he’s. I said, no. She says, Oh, it’s somebody’s birthday. And he starts to make a get, Oh, is it your birthday? And she says, no, it’s your birthday. What kind of a guy forgets his birthday? So you immediately, you’re, you know, setting the stage for the sky back from an insane asylum. A little off. He, uh, picks up the phone and starts talking to a woman on the other end of the phone.

Joe Tika. And as he’s in the middle, he says, Oh, will you come and see me? And the aunt puts her finger on the receiver and says, who are you talking to? And he says, I’m talking to Joe Tika. And he says, I’ve told you to stop talking about her. And they have a little dialogue.

Craig: Oh, you don’t.

What’s her photo.

I won’t. 

Todd: It’s interesting. All of this kind of, I actually went back and rewatched some of this movie because of all the twists that come along. Uh, just to see how some of these things line up and you definitely get a different feel. It’s quite clever. I gained a bit of more of an appreciation for the script after I watched through it a second time and saw how all of these things fit together.

Now you thought it was predictable. I agree. I think certain parts of it were predictable, like aspects of the general nature of the plot, but I actually felt like the twists, the ended up coming up, especially toward the end of the movie. I didn’t see coming.  

Craig: I did. 

Todd: Okay. No, that’s totally fine. Well, you blew past me.

I’m not as smart as you, Craig. That’s, 

Craig: well, obviously, but to be fair, it’s not like, Oh, I’ve got it all figured out. It was just, these questions kept popping up in my mind like, what if this, what if this, and in the end, a lot of. My suspicions ended up being true and then other suspicions didn’t. So it’s not like I had it all figured out and there, there definitely were things that I didn’t see coming and actually some twists that ended up being really dark that I the, the movie didn’t.

Strike me as being that kind of movie and for whatever reason, gosh, you know, here’s my ethnocentric attitude coming through. I, I guess I just didn’t expect something this dark in an Indian film for whatever reason. I don’t know. 

Todd: No. Well, I mean, it’s, that’s fair because most Indian India is a pretty conservative society, and most of these films, these Bali, especially the big Bollywood romance productions, things like that, they’re often about love and lust and, and all this stuff, but they’re done in a very chaste way for the screen.

And so society’s kind of like that. And so their movies, even though they might deal with some of these deeper themes on the screen, they really play out in a more innocent kind of. Chased way. And so there’s that part of, part of what was so intriguing about seeing the slasher movie was I was wondering, are they going to go there?

Are they going to, you know, do, is it going to be super bloody? Is there going to be sacks as they’re going to be some, they’re never going to be any nudity. I didn’t expect that, but was there going to be any of this? The stuff that we typically see in these movies, and there isn’t. Yet. Like you said, it’s dealing with some pretty dark subject matter at times, and so it’s a little, it’s not what we’re used to seeing.

Right. It’s a little off balance for us. It was for me anyway. 

Craig: Well, it was just unexpected for me. Some of the things, not everything, but some of the things, um, the only thing, you know, before he wakes up, we do get a little bit of this, what ends up being a flashback to this party and really kind of the only thing that we see is ohm is in love with joy.

Tika, uh, and he buys her for Christmas to show his love, this snow globe that has the Taj Mahal in it, because she’s always wanted to see the Taj Mahal, whatever, blah. But then there are two other characters, J and J UNITA. And Jay has a thing for goonie ETA, and he has also bought her, I think a snow globe or something, but it’s like cheaper and not as nice, but also the Taj Mahal.

And when he goes to present that to her, like she. She’s the one that ohm got for Joe Tika. I have such a hard time with these names just because they’re so foreign to me, but when she sees it, like she’s so impressed by it and it seems like she’s kind of got a thing for ohm too, and Jay’s like, Oh look, I got you this.

And she’s like, Oh no, but I hate you. Go away. It’s really 

Todd: harsh. Yeah. 

Craig: She’s really kind of mean to him. It kind of sets up that romantic. Quadrangle or whatever between these folks. And so there’s already a little bit. Of tension and conflict. Mostly coming from Jay, I guess, because 

Todd: I’m the asshole. Yeah.

Craig: Omen. You know, Jay are just trying to do their own thing and, and Jay and goonie to, or just kind of on the sideline. That’s what’s set up. But then we see that the, the 12 years have passed and he does get that phone call and the woman joy Tika on the other side of the phone says that she will come see him or he asks her to come see him and the aunt who he stays with is like, no, she, she ruined your life.

You were in that mental asylum for 12 years because of her. Of course he doesn’t. Care. Um, and so he looks at some old photographs of them, and then she shows up. And I have in my notes, Joe Tika visits question Mark, like, because it’s. She shows up in a very kind of ethereal way, like she’s backlit and I don’t know enough about Indian cinema.

What I do know about it is that with these like romance comedies, it’s very. Exaggerated, almost to the point that we in America would call like melodrama or even like soap opera kind of drama. Um, so I didn’t know if that was just a convention. Like, you know, the love interest is glowing from this lighting, but something was fishy to me.

I thought, but anyway, she, she shows up. Then there’s this whole again, then it’s a montage where we meet all of these other characters these 12 years later, and they all have kind of distinguishing qualities, which we can talk about. That’s fine, but ultimately it’s, I know what you did last summer. They all.

Ended up getting these notes that say I caught you, which ultimately kind of ends up bringing them back together. 

Todd: Well, there’s ABI, uh, who is his older brother, OMES older brother who is in a high powered business suit, and he’s Amelie discussing about how he’s been running this company. Apparently, I guess it’s the family business.

And once owned was sent off to the asylum, uh, he, the older brother’s angry that he didn’t get homes. Part of the inheritance and now that OMA is back, he’s honestly saying, I want him out of the picture to look his, his assistant there. And then he does snorts a line of Coke, which, so, so you know, he’s melodramatically evil, right?

And caught you, comes across the screens and the television screens that he has in his layer where he can see all these video conference room from all over. Um, then Jay is a, having somebody beat up. 

Craig: Yeah. He’s like a thug. Like he’s like a taxi Lord or something.  

Todd: that’s it. It’s India, you know, I guess Mumbai, apparently a specifically Mumbai.

So yeah. So he’s having some guy beat up. So you see, he’s like still an asshole. Uh, and then he gets a message on his cell phone that says, caught you. And then EAM Ron, who is a guy we’re seeing for the first time, is a, like an actor. I guess he’s super sexy. 

Craig: Yeah, yeah. And he’s really hot. But like, that’s the thing, like back in the day, he was like the fat one.

He was kinda like the hanger on. Um, and he was kinda like, Jay’s a Lackey kind of back in the day, apparently. And then there’s good Nita who I’ve already talked about, and she’s, I guess like kind of a famous socialite model now. Um, and that’s everybody. Okay. Now this is the. Biggest problem that I had with this movie.

First of all, there’s six of them now. Usually I can deal with six people, but these are all just kind of sexy people. And so it was hard for me to figure out who they were for awhile and it was even harder. Because in the flashback scenes, they’re played by different actors and the actors that play them in the flashback scenes look nothing like them in the current day scenes.

Todd: It’s so true. Right? 

Craig: It was so difficult to end like, I feel like at least one of the flashback actors looked like one of the other 

Todd: characters, and 

Craig: it was so hard for me to. I mean, I eventually did. I, you know, about halfway through the movie, I had it figured out who everybody was, but it was confusing at first.

I don’t know why, you know, all of these people were young and sexy enough that I think that they could have played. Both ages, you know, they could have, they could have dressed them and made them up to look younger and the flashback and then dress them and made them up to look just 12 years older. You know, it’s not like we’re talking about the difference between 80 and 20 when we’re talking about like early thirties.

Early twenties. So that was confusing. That was one of my big gripes. 

Todd: Yeah, you’re right. It did make it confusing to figure it out. Cause we keep coming back to these flashbacks and we’re supposed to be getting more information about the characters. But like you said, we’re not even sure who these people are.

Yeah. It’s a little tricky. So, um, and then after we get that montage that introduces everybody to us, we get another montage where everybody, one by one gets kidnapped. Yup. They all end up, uh, asleep and wake up together in a shopping mall on wakes up first, uh, with, uh, Joe Tika by his side. And then one by one, they wake up and they kind of wander around the mall, meet up with each other, realize w, you know, the, Oh, you’re here.

What’s the, or what’s the idea? Did you have something to do with this? And we see a little bit of that tension go on. 

Craig: They’re not happy to see each other. No joyful reunion. 

Todd: And, um, one of my favorite bits is I think that, um, Jay and ABI get into it a little bit and I think it is, um, Donita who comes in and kind of breaks it up and they run to a glass door that leads into the underground parking garage of the small, and like.

IB is like you’re shaking at the door and uh, looks like Jay is going to throw. It’s throwing a chair at the door. It seems like they should be able to break the glass in this door and leave the mall and a goonie to runs over and go, stop. What are you doing? She says, we need to figure out what’s going on first before we leave.

And so they’re like, okay. And they turn around and leave. I thought that was so lame, and my wife, who was sitting here watching it with me, looked at me and rolled her eyes as well. So 

Craig: hello

Hello. 

Todd: There’s some little things about this film as in most movies that are pretty unbelievable, like why wouldn’t they just do acts? Why can’t they just do Y? It was a little silly that before everything kind of came to a head and they realized their purpose in the mall, they were given so much time to run around or just fricking leave.

One way or another. 

Craig: This is a huge mall. I mean, it’s actually really a pretty cool set piece. Um, I don’t know. I only can assume that they probably filmed it in a real mall. It looks like a real mall. 

Todd: Oh. When it’s decked out for Christmas. So it’s, that’s what makes us kind of a nice Christmas movie, if nothing else.

Craig: Oh yeah. There’s Christmas everywhere. Everywhere is Christmas. Um, but like it doesn’t make sense. Okay. I get it’s the middle of the night that there’s no security there at all and I’m getting a little bit ahead of myself, but guns eventually come into play. Surely. Those guns could have broken the glass and they could’ve gotten them.

Yeah, right.

Todd: Good point. We’ll also, they can wander in and out of these stores at will. It’s usually don’t they usually lock 

Craig: those up like random ones are open. I don’t even know. 

Todd: They all meet up and they’re all together finally, and it’s in this open area with this big beautiful Christmas tree and all these presents underneath it as they’re fighting.

They see that Enron, Oh, has a scar on his abdomen. They look over at ABI and see that he’s got some blood on his shirt and he pulls it up. Every single one of them has a scar, like someone has cut them open right around their stomach area and at about this time, J I think it is, finds presence under the tree behind them and notices that.

Every one of the people there except for him has a labeled present under the tree. And so they kind of distribute those and people start to open them. And some of them have remote controls. ABI kind of opens his and notices that there are drugs in there. Uh, and he quickly closes it and doesn’t tell the others.

Uh, then a television screen, which I guess was just sitting there all along comes on. And there’s a guy dressed in a Santa suit, all logic saw or whatever, who starts talking to them, and it’s a little unclear at this point. This is another problem I kind of have with this movie, is that the movie’s called hide and seek.

So the Santa suit comes on and this guy in the Santa suit basically says, I know I brought you guys all together here. You’re here to finish the game that you started playing 12 years ago, but never finished. The game is hide and seek. You each have, you know, some things in your stomach that I’ve put there, and that’s gonna keep you in line.

Uh, we’ll all, you play this game. So I guess the presumption is you, if you try to escape, he’s gonna zap you. Now, what I didn’t notice before when I watched it, but of course it’s glaringly obvious when you watch it a second time, is that, uh, he keeps getting interrupted by ohm. Ohm will jump in and go like, we don’t want to play this game.

And he’ll be like, be quiet. I, you know, you’re playing this game. And that’s when they say, well, well, they can hear me. He can hear us. And they look up and they see there’s some security cameras around as well. And at one point, the Santa Claus on the screen pulls up a remote and hits a button on it. And that.

Shocks, ohm and ohm, you know, falls backwards and starts kind of convulsing on the floor to demonstrate that they have this, you know, these devices in the, my guess. Um, and so there, that’s, that’s the thing. And he says, okay, this is your game. Are you going to play? And ohms like we’ll play. And everybody else there eventually starts saying, we’ll play.

And he’s like, okay. Let the game begin and closes it right now. I don’t really know what that means. What is, how are they playing hide and seek? Did you pick up on that like, 

Craig: no.

Another thing that’s interesting is that throughout, we keep getting just very brief flashbacks to this party, and it seems like the events that are happening now are running very much parallel to the events that are happening here. In fact, at that party that they were at. There was a Santa Claus there who, I don’t even know who, that was one of them and a costume.

Was it, uh, another guy, I don’t even know who it was, but apparently they played this game all that time ago. And through these very brief flashbacks, you know, we get hints of violence and drug use and all this stuff. It was a rough night apparently, and now they, um. Have to finish the game or whatever. But no, it’s, it’s very unclear like what the parameters of this game are.

Um, he tells him that they have until 6:00 AM but until what? Like he says that, um, ABI has to find everybody by then. Okay, well, fine. So why don’t they all just go, I stand around the corner and be like, don’t find us. Don’t find it. You know, like, like, wouldn’t that make it much easier? You know, I, I don’t.

Get it, but whatever. They appear to believe that they are in peril and so they run off and omen joy Tika go together andJ  or Jai wants to partner up with goonie, but she is apparently just absolutely repelled by him and so they go off the loan. IEM Ron. Books that out of there before anybody even notices that he’s gone.

Um, and ABI stays behind. They all run around the mall and look for places to hide. Meanwhile, ABI stays back, opens up his gift. That I guess is heroin. I’m not. Well versed in hard drugs, so 

Todd: I don’t know. 

Craig: But it’s like Brown and there is a 

Todd: needles, 

Craig: right? Right. A syringe. And he shoots up and then he starts like walking around looking at them.

But he’s so high that he’s just completely out of it and they play. Like in the background, this is the closest. I feel like we get to a musical number there. They’re playing this song in the background. Um, and the lyrics are so funny and I, it’s like, Oh gosh, where are they? I know. I wrote them down cause I thought they were so funny.

And it’s, it’s metal. It’s like Indian metal, which I’ve never heard before, but the, the, the primary lyrics are hide. You’re being hunted, seek your life is at stake. And like, it just keeps repeating that with a few other lyrics over and over again. And, uh, he’s running around looking for them. And then he. I guess goes into like an electronics store.

He breaks a display case full of cell phones and he starts trying to use the cell phones, I guess to call the police or call somebody and somebody shows up. We don’t see who it is, but it’s got the voice of the Santa Claus and points a gun. In hobbies face

That’s to the other characters, and we hear like three or four gunshots. So I thought ABI was dead. 

Todd: Hmm. Yeah. 

Craig: But he’s not, 

Todd: no, he’s not 

Craig: yet 

Todd: earlier than this though. I think Jai Gid eventually found his present. You did have a present and inside of his box was a gun. So there’s some, I think that happened before.

For this. So there’s some implication that may be he’s the one that shot him anyway. There’s some flashbacks to that night where apparently also he also found a gun that night in a drawer and then GUDID or is running and hiding in a movie theater, and then the screen comes on in the movie theater and she sees herself.

Like on the screen, playing out a little bit of that night, and I was thinking, where did this video come from? Like, yeah, they have surveillance footage of all of this. 

Craig: Well, it’s like there was a camcorder sitting right on the dresser where, yeah, Avi was like snorting Coke and that’s where Jay 

Todd: found the gun.

But if there were, then. The rest of the movie wouldn’t make sense because they would have proof of exactly what happened that evening and then things wouldn’t have ended up with them the way they did. So that was a little, yeah, that didn’t make much sense, but it’s a cool effect, right? 

Craig: Yeah. I mean, I guess whatever they, Jay finds ABI dead in dressed in the Santa suit.

He’s not really dead, but they make us think he is for a while, only to bring him back for 30 seconds later, and then he just dies anyway, which is stupid. 

Todd: No, no. He has to get his monologue in. That’s why he comes. 

Craig: Yeah, and his very special, like afterschool is festival, but then. He, then he finds the gun. So he’s standing there with Arby’s, apparently dead body and the gun and Canita finds them.

And she thinks that Jai killed him and he’s trying to convince her that he didn’t, but she runs off and that’s when she ends up in the movie theater. And then from this point on, it’s very cat and mouse. And this is the other. Okay, so. Figuring out who the characters were and too many actors. That was a big problem for me.

The other problem for me, and I don’t know if this was them trying to Americanize it or I don’t know if it was. If it’s a, an Indian convention, I don’t know. But they throw in so many red herrings that it really just pissed me off. 

Todd: Like 

Craig: first IEM, Ron runs around and finds a giant machete in the mall. Why?

I don’t know, but, okay. And so he’s running around with this giant machete and then all of a sudden Goonies does being chased by. Santa and Santa has the exact same giant machete so. It’s gotta be IEM, Ron, right? No, that’s way too obvious. Right. Couldn’t possibly be. Then Jai, who is trying to find and woo goonie data, by the way, he’s also just swinging the gun around wildly and firing it.

Every noise that he hears, he almost shoots good Nita at some point. Yeah. Um, but like, he sees an outfit in the mall window and he looks at it like, Oh, that would be nice. And the outfit has, comes with these combat boots with red shoelaces. And then later when Goonies was being chased, not only does Santa have, uh, the big machete, but he’s also wearing those exact boots.

And. So that convinces her that there’s those two are somehow working together, which as it turns out, she has reason to believe, but it just made me mad. Like, stop it. Stop it with these stupid red herrings. I know that they’re red herrings and I’m not falling for it. Just knock it off. 

Todd: Oh, that’s pretty typical horror movies though, isn’t it?

To throw that kind of stuff in there, 

Craig: but there’s so blatant, like both blatant in your face. Like here’s Jai looking at this stupid outfit, which he changes into, like they’re in mortal peril, but he takes a minute to shop at the gap. 

Todd: It’s true. And there’s no good explanation for them either. It’s not like at the end of the day, they kind of make sense.

No, they were just like two machetes that the other character happened to. A hap on happened upon. There’s another pair of boots that happens to look exactly like the one that Santa was wearing. Yeah, yeah. You’re right. They’re pretty lame. Red herrings for sure. Yeah. AFT and there, there’s also a giant display of the Taj Mahal that looks exactly like what was inside that snow globe that they were handling, 

Craig: and she finds the exact snow globe before we, this is big, like the scene that you’re getting to is.

Big, like this is kind of the big reveal. So I just wanted to say that before this ohm and, uh, joy Tika are also running around and like, they find the control room. And it’s weird because like the Santa has been chasing somebody around, but there’s a lit cigarette in the ashtray and they’re like, Ooh, that’s weird.

And then there’s also that moment where they realize that, um, ABI has moved. And so they go down there and that’s when ohm and ABI happens. This moment where obvious like, I hated you because, because when you were born, nobody paid any attention to me anymore. And so after that night and uh, ohms, like you had me institutionalized in you, it’s like, yes.

And, and then when you got out, I was trying to get you back in, but. I’m sorry. Now I realize

Todd: it’s so long. This scene is like five or eight minutes long. It’s this, it’s almost, it’s almost comical really. Cause it’s like, it’s like they think he’s dead and he pretty much is, but he wakes up to give this long spiel, just basically spill out their entire backstory to each other, um, cry a lot, uh, in each other’s arms and then have him.

You know, fall over dead again. So it’s, it’s this heightened drama moment compacted into five minutes in them. Maybe that may be a little world cinema for you. That’s not typical Halloween. 

Craig: Yeah, it’s very melodramatic. It’s very silly. But meanwhile, like joy Tika. Goes away somewhere to like give them their moment, I guess.

Okay. Then we get back to the scene that you were getting ready to introduce where Grenada finds herself in apparently the Taj Mahal store, cause that’s the only thing that’s in there. There’s like a big replica of it that looks exactly like the one from the snow globe. Then there is the exact snow globe.

There and she picks it up and, and she hears somebody behind her, she turns around and it’s giant, his new cute outfit. 

Todd: So this is where we actually, we get more information. We get the full story basically, of what happened that night because she still hates his guts and he’s getting more and more agitated.

And so they confront each other and he ends up pulling a gun on her. He’s just, this, I won’t take no for an answer kind of guy. It’s sort of like, I love you. And. And I, I want you, or, or nothing. And it turns out that that night, 12 years ago, what happened was, um, is he was coming onto her and she was saying no.

And he wouldn’t take no for an answer, 

Craig: not an excuse for anything. That happens moving forward, but she’s really, really mean to him. She calls him like street trash and tells him to go crawl back into the sewer that he came  hot for funding and I hate you. You keep low life to miss

miss . Do you understand?

She really doesn’t like him. 

Todd: Yeah. You, you kind of need, you need a flashback before the flash bag just to see why she hates his guts so much. Right. Uh, so like, why was he even at the party hanging out with these people if he was so disgusting? Well, OAM and, um, Joe Tika are locked in a bathroom. Kind of make an out.

I guess that’s the implication. Everybody else is off somewhere and it’s just a, him and gmita and IEM. Ron in that room and IEM. Ron is, I guess kind of like his Lackey, like you said, he was a little fat. He was kind of the puppy going along, I guess with whatever he wanted him to do. So he hands him Ron the gun and tells him to go outside and stand guard.

By the bedroom door. And so  Ron just like, okay. It kind of takes it and goes out and clearly conflicted, but 

Craig: he, exactly, 

Todd: he does it anyway and goes outside and stands by the door, kind of like half in tears, while again, um, we don’t see this and we don’t hear it or anything like that, but basically, um, we know that a GI is raping her in the bedroom.

And that was, 

Craig: that’s the thing that I didn’t see coming. I know, God knows. That kind of 

Todd: level of intensity. 

Craig: Yeah, I know. Like I thought that I was under the impression that these people were all friends and even though maybe they had had this traumatic experience, like, I don’t know, and it just threw everything in.

Two question for me, like why wasn’t goonie de even more angry and freaked out when she found out that Jai was there with them in the mall? I mean, she does say like, what are you doing here? Or something like that, but it’s, it’s violent and like you said, we don’t see anything per se, but he’s on top of her.

And. It’s very clear what has happened, you know? Because then Iran comes back in and Jai stands up and like zips himself back up and she’s laying there on the bed crying like it’s, it’s perfectly crystal clear that he has raped her. And, and again, I get the email, Ron is supposed to be like the Lackey and like you said, he is clearly conflicted, but come on, like that’s some pretty serious.

Stuff. 

Todd: Yeah, it truly is. And then, I mean, these other two are in the bathroom, just off of the bedroom. So it’s like, I mean, like right there by the bed, there’s a door that leads to a tiny, 

Craig: no, no, no, no, no, no. Because, no, because they have to run across the apartment. They do. Um, I thought they ran out the door yet.

No, there is, there is a, I don’t remember exactly how it goes down. So somehow Guna gets her hands on the gun. Yes. And she’s pointing it at Jai and threatening to kill him, the two in the bathroom, and I don’t know if they’re making out or what. I think they’re just hiding their plating, playing hide and seek, and they’re hiding together and in the shower, but they hear like this commotion and they hear people approaching and she says, I think I don’t want anybody to find us like this.

I don’t. Like she’s afraid that it’s too suggestive, like they think that they will have been fooling around or something. So she kind of playfully gets up and Guna is chasing Jai through the apartment. They end up in the . The bedroom with the bathroom that the other two ohm and you, uh, Joe Tika are in and joy Tika comes running out with a big smile on her face.

Like she’s still playful. Like she doesn’t know what’s going on, but she ends up running right between granita and Jai and Grenada fires at Jai that it hits GTK and she falls dead. On the bed or dying on the bed and ohm comes out and of course is distraught and terrified and everybody’s just kind of standing around in shock, but then ohm and their parents show up, I guess this is that their house, somehow OAM has gotten his hands on the gun and Jai says he did it.

And nobody. That’s another thing that I don’t understand. Why would they pin it like I get why Jai would want to pin it on own, but why everybody else? GI is the one who’s the total. Asshole in this whole scenario owned, didn’t do anything, but it’s like everybody else just goes along with it. That ohm is the one that killed her and that’s why he ends up institutionalized for 12 years.

That didn’t make any sense to me. 

Todd: It’s a bit of a, it’s a considerable stretch. It’s very convoluted. I agree. I didn’t get it either.  where’s everybody just so distraught and worried that the girl would be ? I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know what the reason was. I 

Craig: guess. I guess maybe they were trying to protect her.

I guess one thing I ultimately, I don’t really know if I feel like it worked or not, but I was impressed by their attempt to make everything so parallel. So as we’re seeing. All of these things that I’ve just described go down with the rape and, and the guarding of the door. All of these things are happening again, almost exactly the same.

Todd: Um, 

Craig: you know, Jai Jai has the gun on goonie de again, he’s trying to seduce her. She rejects him. He is, you know, potentially about to get violent with her. The only difference is. IEM. Ron shows up and baked, basically says, I’m not your Lachie anymore. Um, and I’m not going to do this again. And so they fight and they have a pretty good fight and it’s satisfying cause IEM Ron kicks his ass, but he is really stupid, which, uh, GI points out because once Jaya is down and apparently unconscious, um, IEM, Ron leaves the gun right at Gyse fee and goes to Grenada in what really is maybe the most heartfelt moment of the movie where he just.

Apologizes to her and says, I’m so sorry. You know, like, I was, I was weak. Um, you know, I, I didn’t want that to happen to you. I didn’t want to do it. Um, I’m so, so sorry. And, and he says, you know, I understand that you can never forgive me. And, and the look on her face is. You know, that kind of sums it up.

Like, I can’t forgive you, but I get what you’re saying. You know, we were both kind of victims in that moment. Um, but he, you know, he just says, I know you can’t forgive me, but I just want you to know that I’m not a horrible person. I didn’t want this to happen to you. And then he gets shot in the back. Jai shoots him.

Um, and then the whole chase happens again the same way that it did before, but somehow. She ends up getting the gun and she shoots him, right? But then she, okay, so then she goes downstairs and she finds ohm and he’s who’s by himself. She says it’s just the two of us left and he’s like, no, joy. Tika is still here.

She just ran off for a minute. And Grenada is like, what are you, what are you talking about? Joy teak is here, and then joy Tico walks into frame and he’s like, she’s here. She’s, she’s right there. And goonie data says, and this is the part, it’s not like I knew, you know, for certain that this was the case, but I suspected it all along.

She says, don’t you remember what happened that night? Joy teak has been dead for 12 years. She died that night. And he says, no, she didn’t. She’s right there. And we can see her, but goonie to says, okay, where is she? And it’s not like he points her out or anything, but she just kind of looks around. She’s like, okay, so she’s right there.

Well, if she’s right there when I fire this gun, then the bullet will hit her and she does fire the gun. But this time. Oh, jumps in front of it, 

Todd: which was a nice, again, nice parallel and sort of the, um, redemption, if you will, for his guilt is what’s is what’s being played out here. And so then they have their moment where ohm dies and we see flashbacks to see that I’m actually all of these scenes where like for example, when she came to visit him.

Ah, boom. She actually wasn’t there. He was just, you know, playing with himself. He was just, you know, I having this moment, I’m imagining that she’s there. Yeah, it’s cute. It’s like they showed these previous shots that they had shown of the two of them together. They just pop her out of them, you know, hop her out 

Craig: and he looks so silly like he does.

You would think he was creepy. He’s like stroking his own hand and like giving like these loving looks to like nobody next time. It’s pretty funny. Oh, it’s hilarious. The UNITA is alone then, and she just, you know, stands in the middle of the mall and starts screaming and is like, is there anybody else here?

Is there anybody else here? And then Santa shows up again and I’m like, what the heck? Like, who is this guy? Because I just assumed that it had to be one of them, or maybe more than one of them working together, but everybody’s dead. So he’s just, he’s standing there, he’s got his machete again, and she’s like, well, you killed everybody else.

I guess you’re going to kill me too. And then she’s like, do it. Just kill me. That’s. That’s what I want for Christmas. 

Todd: Yeah. Kill me. And the raises the machete 

Craig: and brings it down on her. Again. We don’t really see it. There’s not a whole lot. There’s some blood, a little bit of blood in the movie. Um, but it’s more suggested than anything.

Like, it’s like bleeding through clothes, like, um, and you, you do see those little. Like stitched up incisions, but not a terrible amount of direct Gore. Um, so we don’t actually, we just see the machete come down. We don’t even see it make contact, which. Raise my eyebrows like, did he really kill her? I don’t know.

But the next thing it cuts to the next day and a security guard apparently finds all this stuff. And then we get a news clip and it talks about how all of these people were prominent people. And they say that there was only one survivor. And I’m like, well what? Who? And, but it turns out its own, but they say he can’t be.

Interrogated because he has suffered from mental illness since his youth. And so they, the police can’t question him. And it cuts back to him in his bed at his aunt’s house where we had kind of first met him in this current day. And he seems to just kind of be like the simple kind of invalid that. He was before seemingly 

Todd: seemingly, and then it’s like a nighttime or whatever, and he gets up out of bed and takes off his thing that’s wrapped around his hand or whatever, and walks outside into the yard and there’s a little hut or house nearby, I guess, the yard, and he looks left and looks right and moves a door side and goes inside.

And his aunt also is kind of looking around the corner at him, like she sees him, but I guess she assumes that he’s sleepwalking again. Um, but she doesn’t do anything about it. Uh, this was a little strange because she was throwing some, almost knowing smiles at him that I thought, is she in on this too?

Like, uh, I, I still not even sure completely, but I’m not sure that this little room could exist on her property without her knowing about it. If it is indeed her property, who knows? Anyway, he goes into this room and what we see is that there are all these clippings up everywhere. There’s all the materials that were kind of used in this whole incident, are in there, and, uh, it’s all very usual suspects.

He, and it turns out that he had set up this entire thing so that he could get revenge on all of these people for the death of his, of his, uh, love. Back then. 

Craig: Well, and for ruining his life. 

Todd: So it was a, it was pretty interesting actually. I did not see this coming. I’m, maybe you did. I didn’t see Kamin. I was wondering who in the world is going to be in that Santa suit?

But at that point, everything was so poetic, especially with how the way that he died, you know, I wasn’t quite sure who was going to be, I thought maybe it’s going to be like a parent. I thought maybe it was the aunt there for a minute. You know? 

Craig: I thought so too. For a second. . Um, the, the only reason, you know, it crossed my mind that it would be him because ultimately, especially when you find out what happened, he would be the one with the most motivation because goonie de even says to Jai before she kills them, you killed me once and you didn’t just kill me.

But you’ve ruined everyone’s lives. And it seems like that’s kind of true. But ohm is the one who really, you know, took the . Fall for everything. Um, and, and ended up spending his whole adult life and, uh, well lost the love of his life and then spent his whole adult life in an institution. So I knew that he had the motivation, but what I didn’t think it could be him because I didn’t think it was plausible because joy Tico was always with him.

but then when it turns out that she’s dead, the movie does this for you if at the end, like it gives you this montage of all of the ways that he was behind everything and how it was always him in the Santa suit and he was laying the groundwork for all this. He was the one that sent the messages. He was the one that abducted the mall and 

Todd: he shot himself in the arm too.

Craig: at the end because he was wearing somebody shot. Oh, when he took the shot for joint Tika, he was wearing, he was wearing a Bulletproof ver, yeah. Bulletproof vest. And one of the things that I found most intriguing was that whole demonstration of the device in their stomach that was totally staged like he was, he was just faking it, which made me wonder.

If he even put anything in any of them or if he just sliced them and then sewed him back up to make them . Yeah, we 

Todd: were talking about that too. I think you’re right. It, I mean probably not I, there would be no point unless he were, unless he had control, unless he could actually, maybe he still wanted to have that option.

You know, to, uh, to buzz them. It’s hard to say, 

Craig: I guess, but that would be 

Todd: pretty impressive. 

Craig: That’s some, that’s some dr Frankenstein stuff in there, 

Todd: but they do show the scene of him doing the selling. But you’re right. He could’ve just been sewing up a gash. That’s 

Craig: right. Yeah. So, anyways, so we see all that and, you know, it’s clever.

I’ll, I’ll give it that. And you know, the way that they present it, it seems plausible. Uh, that he could have been behind all of this. Um, and so then he’s standing there just kind of smiling mischievously and joy. Tico walks in and she says, they all think I’m dead. How about you? And they embrace, and he breaks the fourth wall and looks directly into the camera.

And says, what do you think? And then that’s the end. Now I, I, and I didn’t know how I felt about that. I mean, it was very tongue in cheek and I liked it. 

Todd: I thought it was cool. I thought it was, I don’t know, I thought was kind of a neat challenge at the end. It’s corny. Yeah, it’s definitely a little corny, but I got some chills finding out that he was behind it all.

And then also seeing her come back in. Obviously she’s. Probably still dead. There’s no way she’s still alive. She would be in hiding for 12 years just to pull all this off with him. No, of course not. But at the, anyway, I, I’ve, the impact at the end of the movie, it was like, Oh my gosh, this was a bit of a surprise for me.

Like I didn’t expect all these little twists and turns and I didn’t expect to be surprised by the end of the movie. Like I was, cause I hadn’t figured out most of it. I didn’t find too much of it terribly obvious to me while I was seeing it. And, uh, definitely her not existing. I had to, like I said, go back through and watch the movie again to see, Oh, how cleverly constructed the scenes were and some of even her dialogue, which was just, you know, basically ignored by the other characters, but in a way that it didn’t sound like it was ignored.

Craig: Okay. So since you’ve watched it twice, I’ll ask you this. Um, the only part that bothered me about her not really being there was when they all met together in the mall.  and there was a gift for her. 

Todd: Yes, yes. 

Craig: Under the tree 

Todd: and Jay Jai deep says, Oh, I guess I’ll just open joy. Tecos gift and ohm jumps in and says, no, you will not.

Joe Tika will open her gift and he snatches it from him and he says, wait, and then they get interrupted. He never hands the gift over to joy teak or anything like that. He’s just got the gift in his hand and then other things happen and it just kind of falls by the wayside. Yup. 

Craig: Gotcha. Yeah, it’s, that was the only part that I was a little confused, but it’s 

Todd: really pretty smart.

I’m, I, I got to give this movie a bit of credit. I, I really enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Yes. There was a lot of this very typical, I would say, very typical of world cinema, meaning sort of outside of Hollywood, this tendency to really prefer melodrama and to really go heightened on the acting, and it’s just sort of the way things are.

I, you know, I see in Chinese movies all the time, Japanese movies were. It seems like every other scene, whenever there’s somebody upset on the screen, they’re gonna end up crying about it. I thought it was hilarious that bit where the two brothers get together and they just sort of spill out all of this backstory that was completely unnecessary, but apparently necessary for somebody in the audience to know in these last five minutes learning all this about these two people before this guy dies.

You know, nothing that we give a crap about in. An American movie, we try to avoid that type of thing. So there were these elements that were kind of cute and interesting, the chase Snus of what’s going on, even though there’s some really dark stuff that they’re implying, the way that they’re kind of dancing around it in a way so that they’re not showing things explicitly or talking about things explicitly was kind of cute as well.

Um, and strikes one is a little naive, but once again, it’s just because that’s not what we’re used to. So these sorts of things. I found, I don’t know, I was just fun watching an Indian movie and seeing the sort of way of doing this horror movie to see that it could be done and that could hold my interest up to the point where even by the end I was like, ah, that, that really, um, surprised me.

Craig: I didn’t dislike it. I thought it was fine. I mean, it. Had it been an American movie, it’s something that I would have, you know, popped on on Netflix just cause you know, not, and, and it was fine. I wasn’t bored. I was interested. It had pretty people in it to look at, even though ultimately I did find some of the twists, somewhat predictable.

It at least had a fair amount of intrigue, and so, you know, I, I don’t think it’s a bad movie. I just didn’t think it was a great movie. I thought it was just okay. Yeah. And I don’t think that I had ever seen a full length, uh, Indian film before. And now I have, and I don’t think that this is probably typical of traditional Indian films, but it was just kind of cool to see.

From a different cultural perspective, how they would approach this kind of thrillers, slasher. And it was a strong effort. You know, you and I both love a good horror movie set in a mall,

so that was fun. Um. It was a little bit darker than I expected in parts, um, which is also neither here nor there. But, uh, yeah, it was what it was. I, I wouldn’t watch it again, but I wouldn’t actively. Tell people not to see it. It’s, it’s not bad. It’s, it’s fine. 

Todd: Well, it was nice to have a movie. I could sit down and watch with my wife cause you know, she doesn’t have, she doesn’t even like blood.

She doesn’t like too much Gore drama explicitness with things. And this was, you know, a really compelling, captivating movie for us anyway. Uh, that had a lot of cool twists and a bunch of drama that we felt like a puzzle that that had to be worked out. And it was cool that we could watch it together, which we don’t often get to do that.

She enjoyed it a lot too. So, you know, I would recommend it to, to somebody who’s looking for something a little less explicit, that’s still seems adult. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Well, thank you again for listening to our podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. We do have a couple more holiday movies coming up for you right to the end of Christmas, and we do want to thank our listeners for sending us suggestions as we get to the bottom of the barrel of Christmas horror movies.

Those suggestions are evermore important. But for us to find anything at all, and someday we’ll probably just going to have to forget about Christmas as a theme months, unless they start really cranking these things out. Oh boy. Oh, well, you’ll find us on Facebook and you can leave us a message there.

Find us on our website, two guys that red 40 net.com and until next time, I’m Todd 

Craig: and I’m Craig 

Todd: with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.