Renny Harlin's Deep Blue Sea

In this episode of Drawn to Darkness, we dive into Renny Harlin’s gloriously ridiculous, surprisingly good 1999 shark thriller, Deep Blue Sea. We talk genetically modified super-smart sharks, questionable science, the ethics of experimenting on animals, the film’s connections to Jaws and Jurassic Park and whether the sharks are actually the villains, or prisoners staging an elaborate escape from “Alcatraz for sharks”. Expect discussion of Samuel L. Jackson’s legendary mid-speech demise, Stellan Skarsgård’s extraordinarily no good very bad day, Thomas Jane’s unexplained shark-wrangling skills, whether Saffron Burrows deserved her fate, and Michael Rapaport’s unconvincing claim that he spent four years at Caltech. And let’s not forget about sharks who can read blueprints, recognise guns and cameras, predict mechanical failures, and operate ovens. Perhaps most importantly, we also celebrate LL Cool J’s lovable Preacher and his two-egg omelette philosophy.

Content & Spoiler Warning:
Severed limbs, bloody injuries, a character deliberately slicing open her palm, prolonged underwater sequences and breath-holding, claustrophobia, shark attacks, people being eaten, a parrot being eaten, animal experimentation and captivity, sharks being killed, including one being stabbed in the eye, and discussion of dementia and dying with dignity. And of course we will be spoiling Deep Blue Sea, including one of the movie’s most famous and shocking deaths. So go see it!

Palate Cleanser:
Hacks Season 5  (though trigger warning for anyone affected by terminal illness)

The TikTok empty chair trend:  “When Netflix calls me for a documentary about…” 

Sheep Detectives if you want to laugh, cry, and laugh so hard you cry. 

Recommendations:

For More Deep Blue Sea and Shark Talk:
Deep Blue Sea: The Podcast -if one movie simply is not enough and you would like an hour of discussion for every few minutes of Deep Blue Sea.
Evolution of Horror has an episode on Deep Blue Sea.
How Did This Get Made? is a must listen to get the origin for Stellar Skateboard.
See Jurassic Right with Steven Ray Morris for episodes interviewing shark scientists 

The Chris Hemsworth and Anthony Mackie shark documentaries on Disney, especially if you like the idea of Chris Hemsworth surfing and staring pensively at the Australian ocean.

 Toys and Lip Sync Battle for Tom Holland performing “Umbrella” for more LL Cool J.

 Andor and Good Will Hunting because of Stellen Skarsgard

The Mist, The Punisher, and Arrested Development for more Thomas Jayne.

You Season 3 – the best season stars Saffron Burrows. 

The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See - historical fiction about the matriarchal society of Korean divers who can really hold their breath for a long time

The Exorcist – for crucifix clutching

For Survival, Disaster & Nature Trying to Kill You:
Yellowjackets
Alive
The Perfect Storm
Titanic
The Poseidon Adventure
The Rich Man’s House
FantasticLand

Stranded by Nikki Shannon Smith - a middle-grade survival novel about a Black girl from New York who loves nature despite pushback from her family and friends.

Chef and The Bear – for Chefs

Homework:

In keeping with the episode’s themes of neuroscience and science crossing ethical boundaries, the next discussion will focus Season 1 of Dr. Death, the TV miniseries starring Joshua Jackson, Christian Slater and Alec Baldwin.

And remember: Don’t genetically modify apex predators to make them smarter. Don’t stand too close to the edge of a shark tank. Don’t dangle your feet in shark-infested water. Don’t slice open your palm when you need blood.And, most importantly, do not put milk in your omelette.

 Special thanks to Nancy Azano for the podcast cover art. Find her on Instagram at @nancyazano.

Thanks also to Harry Kidd for the opening and closing music. Find him on Instagram at @harryjkidd and on Spotify.

Transcript

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Anne 0:11

Welcome back to Drawn to Darkness, a sometimes weekly, sometimes biweekly podcast where we discuss our favorite horror and true crime. If you could have predicted it's a bad idea to genetically modify apex predators to make them smarter than us, we're here for you. My name is Annie, and I'll be introducing Caroline to my favorite horror movies, podcasts, TV shows, and books

Caroline 0:28

My name is Caroline, and I'll be doing the same from the true crime side of things

Anne 0:32

So, Caroline, how do you like your eggs?

Caroline 0:34

I like my eggs over easy, but if you're asking me about the perfect omelet, I could tell you

Anne 0:39

Sure, tell me.

Caroline 0:40

two eggs, not three.

Anne 0:42

Do you add milk?

Caroline 0:43

often add milk for consistency, but this is a

Anne 0:45

This is a mistake. Well, I like my eggs a little bit runny, but not too runny. But I'm a real scrambled eggs person. I think a, a scrambled egg, there's not much better than that. With avocado.

Caroline 0:57

Hmm

Anne 0:57

the reason we're discussing eggs is because we are covering today one of our favorite movies that provided an early bonding moment in our friendship when we somehow, I don't know, we must have been cooking together, and we started talking about making eggs or an omelet and ended up talking about LL Cool J's two-egg omelet recipe and being like, "This is a mistake."

Caroline 1:18

Mm-hmm.

Anne 1:19

mean, he has single-handedly stopped me from adding milk to omelets, 'cause I used to do it

Caroline 1:23

You did? I never did it

Anne 1:24

I did. I was one of the mistake makers. I actually looked up online, like what is the perfect omelet recipe, and I saw that you could add a bit of water, that that makes it fluffy. sounds wrong, but

Caroline 1:33

I don't know if Preach would approve.

Anne 1:35

maybe we can, him. Slide into LL Cool J's DMs, see what he says. Well, why did we choose this? Mostly because it's the end of summer, and we wanted to cover another shark movie. Like last summer we did Jaws. but we always try to make connections to our past episodes. So I came up with more connections to Radio Rental, which we covered last time. the shoe bomber story led to Snakes on a Plane, which led to Samuel L. Jackson, and he's in this. The sharks watch characters through a window, just like the woman who looked outside and saw a serial killer crouched outside her window. There's a floppy disk at one point that Dr. McAllister is looking at, and obsolete tech, just like,

Caroline 2:13

Hmm. Hmm.

Anne 2:13

Carnation is using VHS. The lead scientist is Dr. Susan McAllister, and we noted in that episode that the parents didn't sit with their kids in coach and made a Home Alone joke. she's trying to solve Alz- Alzheimer's, which includes symptoms of memory loss, which is linked to false memories, which links to our discussion of the Mandela effect last week. So check out our Radio Rental episode. It was a bit of a wild episode in terms of the things we discussed, Oh, and I'm pretty sure we brought up The Truman Show that, in that episode in relation to simulation theory, which includes scenes filmed in a tank, as does Deep Blue Sea

Caroline 2:47

that might've been the first time you actually named what we were covering today.

Anne 2:50

We're talking about Deep Blue Sea. It's in the episode title if you don't know. Yeah, I always put what we're covering in the episode title. No secrets. before we get too far into it, spoiler and trigger warning: severed limbs, a character slices her palm open, which I always don't get why movie characters do that. People hold their breath for an uncomfortably long time. An innocent parrot gets eaten. People get eaten. Animals who arguably are just trying to escape being confined to a tank and used in unethical medical experiment-- experiments are killed. One is even stabbed in the eye, and there's some arguably over-the-top religious messaging. Did I miss anything? Sea, which includes one of the most shocking on-screen deaths of all time. If you have not seen it, pause us. Don't worry about us. Go watch it and come back because I would hate to take that away from you

Caroline 3:42

and that's the beauty of podcasts. We'll be here.

Anne 3:44

We're not going anywhere. You can listen to us, like, in a year, if it takes you that long to watch Deep Blue Sea

Caroline 3:48

Or every year.

Anne 3:49

You could listen to us every day.

Caroline 3:50

Every day if you want, yeah.

Anne 3:52

So here's what Deep Blue Sea is about. With a 60% on Rotten Tomatoes, Harlin's Deep Blue Sea starts like a typical slasher, with an attack on some sexy young people partying on a boat, but subverting the trope at the last minute by allowing all of them to survive thanks to badass shark wrangler, Carter, who spears the mysteriously escaped shark at the last minute. Next, we meet Dr. Susan McCallister, who in her desperation to cure Alzheimer's, has breached ethical standards by genetically modifying three sharks to make their brains bigger so she can harvest proteins or something. Don't think too hard about the science. Deeply concerned by the shark escape, big money investor Russell Franklin, played by Samuel L. Jackson, decides to come for the weekend to check out his investment. There are unsettling signs. The sharks are working together like velociraptors, testing the boundaries, but the scientists have one last shot before the project gets shut down. lo and behold, combining harvested shark brain juice with human Alzheimer's cells results in lightning in a bottle, and the human cells start firing again. Moment of triumph, or is it? The shark takes the opportunity in the lab to chomp off the arm of one of the scientists, setting off a domino effect that will lead to a series of inventive kills of both sharks... and humans. Carter eventually realizes the sharks have apparently studied the blueprints to the facility and are herding the hapless humans through it, causing them to flood and sink the lab. At the very top, the last survivors, Dr. McCallister, Carter, and LL Cool J, who I haven't mentioned yet, the shark lab sh-chef/preacher who just wanted to hang out with his parrot and bake cakes, realizes that the fences are low enough for the one remaining super smart shark to escape. Dr. McCallister, who started all this with her Machiavellian science experiment, jumps into the water with a bleeding sliced palm as bait to give Carter and LL Cool J, Preach, one last chance to take the final shark out before it can use its genius-level intelligence to escape into the deep blue sea. Which they do So what adjective would you use to describe this?

Caroline 5:43

So fun.

Anne 5:44

I was tempted by fun, but I think I used that for Jurassic Park maybe.

Caroline 5:47

we might need, like, a new opening question. I'm gonna run out of adjectives pretty soon.

Anne 5:50

We can repeat.

Caroline 5:52

Yeah,

Anne 5:52

Maybe we can change it to what word comes to mind. Open it up a little bit. I went with good, cause I think this is a good movie.

Caroline 6:01

Mm.

Anne 6:01

it's good. I think it's good. Do you think so?

Caroline 6:03

Oh, I always describe it as beautifully bad, like bad in all the best ways,

Anne 6:08

It's not Sharknado, right? It's not ridiculous.

Caroline 6:11

No. Which Sharknado, I watched it once. Once was enough. I've watched this a ton of ti- and like the Fast and Furious franchise. Like, it's a really enjoyable

Anne 6:19

B movie

Caroline 6:20

watch. I usually call them snark watches, 'cause you can watch it and just be like, "This is so ridiculous, but

Anne 6:25

Yeah.

Caroline 6:25

a great time,"

Anne 6:26

Great time. But in its defense as a just straight-up good movie, it's well-paced. It's got thrills and kills. I think it's a really effective summer blockbuster. Stephen King and Roger Ebert like this movie. fun fact, it was Stephen King's first movie out at the cinema after that car accident that almost killed him. And I found this quote from Roger Ebert's July 1999 review. After slogging through the predictability of countless would-be action thrillers, I admired the sheer professionalism of this one, which doesn't transcend its genre, but at least honors it." I think it's good. Hill I'm willing to die on.

Caroline 6:59

I love to watch it,

Anne 7:00

Yeah, over and over and over again. I didn't need to rewatch this movie, but it was fun to do it from a, a more analytical perspective. so I was recently in Evans Head, which is a small northern New South Wales beach town, it's not far from Ballina, which is a town that was about a decade ago known as like the shark capital of Australia because there were all these run-ins with sharks that people were having. And I went running on this beach while listening to an Evolution of Horror episode on Deep Blue Sea, and I was just like staring out at the sea like Chief Brody in Jaws like, "They're out there." And then I got back from my run and found out s- that someone in my group that I was camping with had seen a shark that day off the jetty, they were there. Would you have gone swimming?

Caroline 7:41

I think we all know the answer to that.

Anne 7:43

No, I know.

Caroline 7:44

ever stepping foot in the ocean in Australia.

Anne 7:48

Yeah

Caroline 7:48

we do finally come to visit you guys, I just need you to know I am not even gonna dip my toes in it.

Anne 7:54

Not even your toes. Well, the jellyfish can still get you with your toes

Caroline 7:57

Right. And jellyfish was, like, my first real upsetting encounter in the ocean, the beginning of the end of me and the ocean's relationship

Anne 8:06

Well, my daughter was getting really mad at me this trip because I'm pretty bl- like, I go swimming in the Australian ocean quite regularly, and I spent a lot of time telling my kids, especially after subjecting them to, like, last summer we did D- Deep Blue Sea, Jaws, The Meg, Sharknado. We had, like, a week of shark movies when they were, like,, 10 and 12 years old. And I've always been like, "It's just movies. Don't worry about it. The odds are in your favor." And this time I was like, Maybe just, like, don't go past your knees." And my daughter was like, "What was all that 'don't worry about the sharks, the odds are so low' talk?" But it had been raining a lot. The water was murky. We were near the mouth of a river. And, just this past Australian summer, there were four shark attacks in Sydney, including a little boy who died because of all the rain, like, washing stuff out into the harbor and the ocean, and so I was just like, "Oh, I really... I don't want you going swimming in this."

Caroline 8:51

and as we learned in the Dollop episode about New Jersey shark attacks, there have been river sharks in New

Anne 8:59

Yes. Well, bull sharks, and we all know tiger sharks swim up the Gulf Stream, right? From Jaws. Uh, speaking of podcasts you love, did you listen to the How Did This Get Made episode on this?

Caroline 9:09

I have listened to it three or four times, and I remember sharing it with my husband when we were driving to come see you last year in Narragansett. When we were, like, coming to our campsite, that's what we listened to in the car on the way there

Anne 9:20

Is this the one that's your Mother's Day present to yourself or your birthday present to yourself, or is that a dollop episode?

Caroline 9:25

No, no, that it was, this.

Anne 9:27

It was this. Okay

Caroline 9:28

I think, Did This Get Made I learned about after I had already known about The Dollop for many, many years. I've already listened to New Jersey Shark Attacks probably five or six times, and so it just transitioned. But yes, on my birthday I listened to Deep Blue Sea in the shower. That's right. I forgot.

Anne 9:43

Look, I sometimes remember things. I always think you, you're like the giver of our friendship, the, the keeper of the memories. Remember that book, The Giver?

Caroline 9:50

Mm-hmm.

Anne 9:51

And I'm just like, Tell me about the past."

Caroline 9:53

the archive, my mafia name,

Anne 9:55

Yes. Yes. I forgot about that from our Goodfellas episode. So do you think this counts as horror?

Caroline 10:00

of course, yes

Anne 10:01

It's interesting that so many people object to Jurassic Park being classified as horror, but not this

Caroline 10:06

I guess Jurassic Park feels more action.

Anne 10:09

More thriller.

Caroline 10:10

Yeah.

Anne 10:10

You talked about how the music in Jurassic Park makes it feel, more uplifting

Caroline 10:14

Yeah, less stressful, less like, I don't know

Anne 10:17

I think I would call this slasher sci-fi creature feature horror.

Caroline 10:22

Hmm.

Anne 10:22

we talked about that distinction that somebody pointed out at one point, that horror is when the main characters are hunted, And in this, the main characters are definitely hunted. but yeah, I think, you know, there's gore, there's stalking. the threat of being cooked to death in your own oven. Like,, And I think they're picked off like teenagers in a slasher. It's like Saw, but if Jigsaw was a shark, right? It's creative

Caroline 10:41

other thing that is a difference with Jurassic Park. Like, there's so much death in this, And there really isn't as much in Jurassic Park

Anne 10:49

And I think the deaths are more gleeful in this, the way they are

Caroline 10:53

हम्म।

Anne 10:55

that's kind of like, "Ah, gotcha," in Jurassic Park is um, Gennaro. Gennaro, the lawyer who gets picked up off the toilet. There's a bit of glee to that death

Caroline 11:03

And Newman.

Anne 11:04

Well, the ones who had it coming

Caroline 11:05

Yeah

Anne 11:06

Well, some of the characters in this arguably had it coming, which we'll get to. But before we talk about that, let's talk about the creator of this. Renny Harlin is the director, probably best known for his work on Die Hard 2 and Cliffhanger, and several sequels of varying quality to horror franchises, including The Strangers, Nightmare on Elm Street, and The Exorcist. So definitely very much in the horror action realm. Do you like any of those movies?

Caroline 11:29

I've not seen anything you just mentioned, I

Anne 11:31

Okay. Not Die Hard Two? Die Hard Two's good.

Caroline 11:33

No,

Anne 11:34

Okay

Caroline 11:34

Die Hard 2. Only th- I've seen the first one A gajillion times,

Anne 11:37

A jillion. And then one of the screenwriters or the screenwriter, uh, Duncan Kennedy, is Australian. And I found an LA Times article talking about how he grew up in Australia and saw the remains of a shark attack victim washed up on shore and had nightmares about being trapped in passageways with sharks that could read his mind. He channeled those dreams and that childhood experience into this script

Caroline 11:59

Mm-hmm.

Anne 12:00

So context and setting. the historical context of this film, 1999. We've already had one movie that we've covered that came out in 1999. Do you remember what it was?

Caroline 12:09

No.

Anne 12:10

The Sixth Sense, which I still can't say. And at that point, We mentioned that there were so many good movies that came out in 1999. Can I just read you a list of good movies that came out in 1999?

Caroline 12:21

I love this type of thing. Go

Anne 12:23

Fight Club, Talented Mr. Ripley, The Blair Witch Project, Cruel Intentions, The Matrix, The Mummy, 10 Things I Hate About You, Notting Hill, Election, Toy Story 2, Being John Malkovich, Office Space, Go, Galaxy Quest, American Pie, Drop Dead Gorgeous, and The Phantom Menace, which I don't count as a good movie. and this is labeled number 67 on a Rolling Stone list of the best movies of 1999. How many good movies?

Caroline 12:48

Oh my God, that's incredible. Election, that's

Anne 12:52

Collection.

Caroline 12:53

Dead Gorgeous, my favorite movie of all time.

Anne 12:55

Were you obsessed with Go? I made Go my personality for, like, a little bit.

Caroline 12:59

I wasn't, but my best friend Kate was.

Anne 13:01

Yeah.

Caroline 13:02

Go

Anne 13:02

Toy Story 2 is, like, still your personality.

Caroline 13:04

Yeah.

Anne 13:06

I

Caroline 13:06

if Toy Story 2 and Drop Dead Gorgeous got married

Anne 13:08

That's you. Okay.

Caroline 13:10

10 Things I Hate About You is also one of my favorite movies ever, so...

Anne 13:13

I just rewatched that with my daughter, and it was so fun. We, we've been watching Clueless, Mean Girls, 10 Things I Hate About You, and, Legally Blonde. And

Caroline 13:23

and I keep seeing these memes of Cat reading the bell jar. It's like, "When I get home, you better not be reading a comically large version of the bell jar on the couch."

Anne 13:31

My dad is reading The Bell Jar right now. He's, like, upstairs in my house reading The Bell Jar.

Caroline 13:35

I just heard there's gonna be a Beljar movie starring Billie Eilish. I cannot fucking wait. I will

Anne 13:42

Okay.

Caroline 13:42

opening night. That

Anne 13:43

You're gonna make that your personality.

Caroline 13:45

Yeah, no. God, I hope not.

Anne 13:48

No, I know. how did we have time to socialize with all these movies coming out when we were, like, what? 17 years old?

Caroline 13:54

I mean, I know how I did. I lived in the middle of nowhere and there was nothing else to do but watch movies and

Anne 13:59

Okay.

Caroline 14:00

and

Anne 14:00

Yeah.

Caroline 14:00

people's houses and have the TV on

Anne 14:02

Well, I wanna cover The Blair Witch Project pretty soon, so

Caroline 14:06

yes, because I absolutely thought it was real.

Anne 14:10

enough that we didn't know. So I mentioned the Evolution of Horror episode on this, and they talk about 1999 and just this general time in the 90s being a time of excess in terms of budgets, but also this time of optimism and a less fractured media landscape. So a movie like this that's a bit silly got this biggish budget, not huge, and did well. It was a box office success, and it grossed over $164 million worldwide, but its budget was only $60 million.

Caroline 14:37

உம்.

Anne 14:37

so yeah, just a time when I think the media landscape allowed for good movies to be made and seen In terms of the setting of the story, it's a claustrophobic three-level mostly underwater facility named Aquatica in the middle of the ocean. the name Aquatica, it just was giving me, like, unobtainium from Avatar. Did you watch Avatar?

Caroline 14:57

I saw Avatar, like, maybe during COVID, during that period where I was like, "I should watch all these movies I never saw that everyone else saw." I really was like, "That was it?" I just found it

Anne 15:06

Yeah. I've s-

Caroline 15:08

bored to death. a bigger, longer, more boring FernGully," which I

Anne 15:13

Yeah, exactly. And they have the stupidest name for the mineral or that they're trying to mine, and it's called unobtainium. And I just remember thinking it's such an overly obvious name. It feels like the first thing that the writers thought of, and they didn't go further than that

Caroline 15:27

Mm-hmm.

Anne 15:28

let's see. Oh, in terms of this facility, I think it's Samuel L. Jackson that refers to it as Alcatraz for sharks,

Caroline 15:34

Yeah. Mm-hmm

Anne 15:34

which brings up the alternative point of view if we look at this from the sharks' perspective. This is a tragedy failed escape of animals that are being horrifically mistreated

Caroline 15:44

Yeah.

Anne 15:44

There's some not so subtle foreshadowing. We get the reference to the fence height very early on. Uh, as I said, Samuel Jackson calls it Alcatraz floats, and we know that's known for escape. And there's just that overall theme of hubris that precedes a fall with all the playing God references, and then we get that beloved shark point of view first pioneered in Jaws

Caroline 16:06

Mm-hmm.

Anne 16:07

One of the things I love about this movie is the fake science.

Caroline 16:10

Hmm

Anne 16:11

Like, when they're extracting the serum or brain juice from the shark, and they're exchanging all these concerned glances, and they're looking at the scans on the screens and calling out shark vitals and talking about things being hyperosmotic. And I was thinking about the lightning in a bottle. Like, what is that?

Caroline 16:25

Right. And I think Paul makes that comment too in the How Did This Get Made? He's like, "That's not like a saying people say," you know?

Anne 16:32

a neuroscience occurs, right?

Caroline 16:34

Yeah, a neuroscience occurs, yeah. wineandcrime

Anne 16:38

I did wanna know more about the science of this, and I found this podcast. I listened to two shark science podcasts. One was on Sea Jurassic Right. So he interviews a bunch of, shark scientists and scientists in general throughout his podcast. So check that out. oh, and then there was this other one called The Good, The Bad The Science, and it was with the director of the CSULB Shark Lab, Dr. Chris Lowe. And he said he actually uses this movie in his university classes to introduce the concept of bioethics and what not to do. he talked about what real marine biologists do who specialize in sharks, and it's not diving in and grabbing them by the fin and going for a ride. he also points out the goofiness of Susan cutting her palm and the shark immediately sensing her blood and turning around. Like both of these episodes I listened to talked about the misconception of how blood in the water works for sharks. there would need to be a current, right? That yes, a shark's senses are very sensitive to blood, but the current would still have to bring it in that direction, and it's just like instantly there, that doesn't make sense.

Caroline 17:41

Water and air are not the same

Anne 17:43

No, they're not. And he also pointed out that when Susan electrocutes the water, she was leaning against cement, which is conductive, so she would've been fried too. But at the same time, no one would've been fried because underwater facilities are built with fast-acting breakers so that if wire touches the water, it just instantly shuts down, so people don't get electrocuted. the other thing I learned was that it is generally physically impossible for sharks to back up and ram anything because, for one thing, the fin is behind, right? You'd need something propelling them back, and also they would drown because the water needs to go over their gills. So if they're not moving forward, the water would not be rushing over their gills, and they would suffocate. lots stuff that doesn't make sense.

Caroline 18:23

that's impossible, but turning an oven on is possible?

Anne 18:27

I think he just rammed it.

Caroline 18:27

Yeah.

Anne 18:28

think that was int-

Caroline 18:29

like, it with his nose.

Anne 18:31

Do you think it was intentional?

Caroline 18:32

I mean, I think the movie wants you to think it's intentional?

Anne 18:35

Well, we know the shark has been watching Preacher through the window,

Caroline 18:38

Mm-hmm.

Anne 18:38

we have a moment where he looks at the window and he's like realizes he has that sense he's being watched. So does it understand that this is the thing that produces heat when it sees liquid cake go into the oven and it comes out as a solid?

Caroline 18:49

Who taught the shark about liquid versus solid? Like, the, the shark doesn't understand states of matter, you know?

Anne 18:57

Right? I love that. Um, also sharks never get cancer or go blind is not true.

Caroline 19:03

Also, if you tear tissue from something, it doesn't remain alive. Like, it's lost its blood flow

Anne 19:10

Are you talking about, the twitching foot?

Caroline 19:12

the lightning in a bottle. she's torn off a piece of brain and

Anne 19:16

Oh, the human brain cells. Maybe they're like, who's that? The HeLa cells

Caroline 19:20

yeah, the Hala, um...

Anne 19:23

I've got this book on my shelf, and I'm blanking on the name

Caroline 19:25

know Uh, Henrietta That's

Anne 19:27

Henrietta. Okay

Caroline 19:28

the cells, they're durable, but You can't make a mummy out of them. if the tissue is dead, it's dead. once you remove brain matter from the brain, I'm Not a scientist, but I feel like it's not functioning any longer. It has no blood and no other neuron connections, so it just dies

Anne 19:47

Not if you put shark juice in it

Caroline 19:49

Oh, right. Sorry, I forgot about that. Shark juice

Anne 19:52

Yeah. Here's something interesting I found out. I Googled Alzheimer's shark research or something along those lines, and I found a science news article that stated, Scientists found high concentrations of toxins linked to neurodegenerative disease in the fins and muscles of 10 species of sharks. This suggests that restricting consumption of sharks can have positive health benefits for consumers and for shark conservation, since several sharks analyzed in the study are threatened with extinction due to overfishing." Basically, it was saying if you eat shark, you are more likely to have, a neurodegenerative disease. Not sharks saving us from this. Like, it's us eating them again that is the problem

Caroline 20:28

Do people eat sharks

Anne 20:30

Lots of people eat sharks.

Caroline 20:31

Really?

Anne 20:32

Shark fin soup's like a thing, and it is associated with a higher risk of brain disease and dementia. So I just thought that was an interesting irony

Caroline 20:39

Hmm. Mm-hmm

Anne 20:40

But it is notable and worth studying that sharks can live for a very long time. Have you seen the news about that Greenland shark that's potentially been alive since Shakespeare?

Caroline 20:50

हम्म।

Anne 20:50

So there's a s- 2016 study by marine biologist Julius Nielsen using carbon dating that places this shark between 272 and 512 years old. it's about their slow metabolism that minimizes cellular wear and tear, but still pretty cool to think that this shark has been through Shakespeare's death, the colonization of the Americas, Newton's discovery of gravity, and the invention of the steam engine, and the cotton gin

Caroline 21:17

What else is hiding in the ocean that's been around that

Anne 21:20

Ooh, there you go. The Meg Okay, fun facts. They used tanks built for Titanic in this,

Caroline 21:28

Ah.

Anne 21:28

which of course recalls movies like Jaws and Waterworld and the difficulty of filming on water. And I found a podcast that interviewed Saffron Burrows, and she talks about how they had to get into hot tubs between takes. So when you see them shivering, like that's for real

Caroline 21:40

Mm-hmm.

Anne 21:41

another fun fact that links to horror is that Bill Skarsgård, who plays Pennywise and is also in Barbarian and Castle Rock, and, uh, the more recent Nosferatu So horror legend was on set as a little boy because of his dad. Yeah

Caroline 21:56

That family is a version of nepotism I can get behind

Anne 22:00

I am all about that nepotism. Give me more Skarsgårds.

Caroline 22:03

Mm-hmm. is he?

Anne 22:07

blonde. He is. We're talking about the Friends laminated top five list in case anyone doesn't get our reference

Caroline 22:12

Yes. the people you're allowed to have sex with if you do happen to meet up with them and they're willing.

Anne 22:17

yeah, Your partner gives you a free pass on these five.

Caroline 22:20

Mm-hmm. then you have more than one blonde 'cause you have Chris Hemsworth too

Anne 22:23

I do, but I mean, I have to go with Chris Hemsworth because he lives in Byron Bay, so there's a chance. Like, he's a few hours south of us, so I could meet him.

Caroline 22:31

Yes, sure.

Anne 22:33

I have a chance.

Caroline 22:34

you could meet him, which totally means he'll have sex with you, but also he's apparently, like, a really nice person and, like, charming and can sing and stuff like that. Like,

Anne 22:45

Listen, if he wanted to actually have sex with me, I wouldn't want him on my list because it would mean he's a bad person.

Caroline 22:51

Yeah, 'cause he has a wife.

Anne 22:52

Right. But fun to think about, right?

Caroline 22:54

Mm-hmm

Anne 22:55

All right, other fun facts. They built a 26-foot animatronic shark because they wanted to beat Jaws, which had a 25-foot shark

Caroline 23:03

Nobody noticed

Anne 23:04

it was the same guy, Walt Conti, who built the Willy animatronic for Free Willy and the snakes in Anaconda. And when Alexander Skars- not Alexander, when Stellan Skarsgård, or what do they call him? Stellar Skateboard?

Caroline 23:18

skateboard, that's my favorite thing.

Anne 23:20

In How Did This Get Made? Now I've got that in my head, Stellar Skateboard.

Caroline 23:23

He says it, it, uh, in How Did This Get Made, I guess when he was typing his notes, it kept auto-correcting Stellan Skarsgård to stellar skateboard.

Anne 23:30

It's a great name.

Caroline 23:31

It

Anne 23:31

when he saw the animatronic shark for the first time, he thought it was real. And it was actually dangerous because I think it was like 8,000 pounds or something. It was really heavy. It was basically like a car, And it could move very fast, so if it hit you, it would be like getting hit by a car in, in the water. So it was actually dangerous Now, um, do you have any other fun facts?

Caroline 23:52

Oh. so they mentioned that sharks are the oldest creatures on the planet. That is untrue

Anne 23:57

Is it cockroaches or something? What is it?

Caroline 23:59

no. many invertebrates such as jellyfish and sponges are older, and also microscopic life forms which I don't totally count, but sea sponges are the oldest

Anne 24:09

Is it the oldest vertebrate?

Caroline 24:10

it might be the oldest vertebrate, but they called it the oldest creature

Anne 24:14

They, they really needed a few marine biologists on set to make some corrections, hey

Caroline 24:19

Agree.

Anne 24:20

Well, we've talked about connections already to both Jurassic Park and Jaws, there's so much that aligns with Jurassic Park. We've got the idea of playing God and the Frankenstein thing, misguided hubris. both movies kind of start with tours implying that they've got it all under control.

Caroline 24:35

Mm-hmm.

Anne 24:36

and we see things fall apart. We've got the mic drop lines, like Carter says, "What you've done is taken God's oldest killing machine and given it will and desire. What you've done is knocked us to the bottom of the food chain." And that aligns with the Ian Malcolm, "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."

Caroline 24:53

Mm-hmm.

Anne 24:57

guy that is posing a threat. Stellan Skarsgård's Dr. Wu. Susan is Hammond. Carter is Muldoon. They both have Samuel L. Jackson dying. Like, there's an incoming storm, a skeleton crew remaining, and then smarter than anticipated carnivores, and very scary scenes in kitchens, right? And Lex climbs into that cupboard like LL Cool J climbs into his oven

Caroline 25:19

Oh, wait. Oh, I did have another connection with Jaws, actually.

Anne 25:23

Okay.

Caroline 25:23

The sharks all die the same manner as all the Jaws sharks have died in each of the

Anne 25:28

Yes.

Caroline 25:29

three Jaws movies?

Anne 25:31

blow up explosion and clouds of red with

Caroline 25:34

The ga-,

Anne 25:34

chunky

Caroline 25:35

electrocution, and then e- explosion.

Anne 25:37

It's a fun little nod to Jaws, yeah.

Caroline 25:40

Mm-hmm.

Anne 25:42

like Except Hooper and Brody don't say, Bring me back to the ghetto."

Caroline 25:45

and you think Hooper's dead, like we thought

Anne 25:49

Reach.

Caroline 25:50

face?

Anne 25:51

Oh, um, Mul-- I was about to call him Muldoon. Carter

Caroline 25:53

Yeah.

Anne 25:54

Cause there's the explosion and then Carter swims up, right?

Caroline 25:58

Eckhart? I think they're the same person,

Anne 26:00

Thomas Jane.

Caroline 26:01

yeah. So Aaron Eckhart is Two-Face. Thomas Jane. is in

Anne 26:04

And thank you for It's also the actual... Well, the Jaws license plate. I don't know if it's the actual same prop that they used in Jaws, but it is that license plate that, Hooper cuts out of the shark that they think ate Alex Kintner. Came up the Gulf Stream from southern waters. Another similarity but also subversion is the opening scene, Because we've got young people partying and swimming, but it's that subversion of Chrissie Watkins' death because they're saved

Caroline 26:28

Although I was like, sorry, are we supposed to think that red wine and blood taste the

Anne 26:33

attracted the shark? I feel like the shark was already on its way. didn't the shark bump them and that's why the bottle fell in the water?

Caroline 26:39

I can't tell what happened first, but I remember, like, watching the red wine go in the water? and being like, "That's not gonna matter."

Anne 26:46

I think that's just to get the audience to think about blood in the water. I don't think that's actually attracting the shark. But don't put your CD player on the edge of a flat boat on water.

Caroline 26:54

Hmm. Seriously.

Anne 26:55

And don't dangle your feet in water. I get so nervous doing that.

Caroline 26:58

brought the teddy bear?

Anne 26:59

They're too old for that

Caroline 27:00

Yeah

Anne 27:00

if you want a lot of Deep Blue Sea talk, there is a podcast called The Deep Blue Sea Podcast, or no, Deep Blue Sea: The Podcast, and they go by DVD chapter. So there's, it's hours of Deep Blue Sea talk, and I didn't get too far into it just 'cause I didn't have time. But I listened to the first one, and they have a theory that the shark wasn't actually trying to escape at this point. It was just trying to test the waters, like literally test the waters to see if it had GPS trackers on it. because otherwise, why don't they just keep escaping, Obviously, they can get out. We- it's never established how they get out

Caroline 27:31

Mm-hmm.

Anne 27:32

Like, why doesn't it just get out again?

Caroline 27:35

was eight feet, give or take a centimeter

Anne 27:38

Michael... Should we just talk about Michael Rapaport?

Caroline 27:41

Fuck that guy, by the way. He's an

Anne 27:43

So you

Caroline 27:43

person.

Anne 27:44

I tried to look it up on Reddit, but it was all very convoluted and a lot of it had to do with his behavior on a show called Traitors, which I haven't seen. So I was confused, but the overall idea I got was that he's an asshole

Caroline 27:54

Yeah, he's an asshole

Anne 27:55

But I have questions about raising the fences because Carter's like, Have you raised those fences yet?" And he's like, I took care of it." How?

Caroline 28:02

I have this note, how does he raise the fences? Like, I, I don't understand There's a mechanism to do that?

Anne 28:08

Or he's got rolls of titanium chain link and he's like welding all a- all afternoon? Like when did he have time to do that? and, you know, never has someone delivered lines as a scientist less convincingly,

Caroline 28:21

I know. I know.

Anne 28:22

I think. Like, he's like, "I spent four years at Caltech, and that's the best physics explanation I've ever heard." And it's like, Sure you did."

Caroline 28:28

Yeah, sure Jan.

Anne 28:31

Richards as the rocket scientist in whatever that Bond movie is that everyone makes fun of. And, like, not that beautiful people can't be rocket scientists, and goofy guys like Michael Rapaport can't be engineers. But, like, uh... And he gets the, um, award for unnecessary audience explanation, too. Samuel L. Jackson's character gets eaten. He goes, It just ate him." It's like, Thank you, Captain Obvious."

Caroline 28:55

Thank you, genius scientist

Anne 28:58

And then he, after, Dr. McAllister gives her whole speech about how the sharks got smarter, he goes, She screwed with the sharks and now the sharks are screwing with us." It's

Caroline 29:05

I know,

Anne 29:06

like, "Okay, we know."

Caroline 29:07

so he's there to be the audience surrogate, I get that. But why would you make him a Caltech or genius

Anne 29:13

Yeah. Are you the genius or are you the guy who fixes the fences?

Caroline 29:16

Yeah. you can't be both.

Anne 29:18

But that's part of what I love about this movie. It's just laughing at him. And he gets his sad but kind of, again, gleeful death scene where he gets chomped by the shark, and then you see his, like, severed leg with, like, the one last foot twitch, which is

Caroline 29:32

so actually I will say Fast and Furious, which is another example of a Snark Watch that I love, that I think are great movies, there are people who are, like, genius scientists in that that don't fit the bill of, what people think of as a genius scientist, and they do it better. they do it more convincingly, Ludacris is a fucking... He g- Ludacris starts out as just, like, he calls races And stuff like that in Florida, and then all of a sudden he's this insane computer genius, and, like, he pulls it off. Michael Rapaport does not

Anne 30:03

And what's his name? Skoggs?

Caroline 30:05

Oh,

Anne 30:06

It's such a weird name.

Caroline 30:07

Scoggins? Isn't

Anne 30:08

Scroggins? Something ridiculous. Well, what an ensemble. I mean, Thomas Jane, Saffron Burrows, LL Cool J, Stellan Skarsgård, Sk- uh, uh, Skateboard, Samuel Jackson, and I don't think anyone feels flat to me except the blonde scientist, Janice. Timu

Caroline 30:22

She,

Anne 30:23

Hank

Caroline 30:23

looked her up actually to be like, was she married to somebody? Because she can't... She, she

Anne 30:27

Is she an EPO baby?

Caroline 30:28

Might be.

Anne 30:29

No? I'm confused.

Caroline 30:30

find anything, but I actually, I didn't look that long,

Anne 30:33

Okay. I don't know why they called her Janice, given that Janice from The Sopranos is in this. Can you give her another name?

Caroline 30:39

didn't come out until, like, the next year, I don't

Anne 30:42

Oh, no way. Okay. Maybe the woman who played Janice in The Sopranos loved this role so much that she was like, "Name me Janice."

Caroline 30:50

I feel like Sopranos started in, like, 2000, but maybe I'm

Anne 30:53

No, you're probably right. Yeah. I think you complained about a character in The Black Phone just, like, delivering lines that felt memorized to you, and I felt like that about her. Like, especially when she says, Beneath its glassy surface, a world of gliding monsters." she's just there for the exposition and the tour, and to get bitten in the crotch

Caroline 31:11

that point I made in that episode as well, does a better job when the material's more Intense. Like, it's much easier to be

Anne 31:18

Intense. Yeah

Caroline 31:20

or an actor than it is to be normal. That's where you can tell the difference

Anne 31:24

Yeah, definitely. I think her death scene is one of the hardest to watch. You know, not only where she's getting bitten, but the way she's, like, raised up and Carter's just able to clutch at her hands before she descends once more beneath the surface I do think she's a bit unfair on Susan Like,

Caroline 31:42

Hmm.

Anne 31:43

her Mr. Perfect boyfriend is not innocent in all this,

Caroline 31:47

No, he's

Anne 31:47

and she's like, "He's the smartest man ever to exist," or whatever she says, and then to Susan she's like, "You stupid bitch." Which, you know, in the moment makes sense, but like I hope had she survived she would've realized that her boyfriend was involved in this as well

Caroline 31:59

Mm-hmm.

Anne 32:00

Um, anything else you wanna say about Timu Anne Heche? I actually probably shouldn't even say Timu Anne Heche because isn't Anne Heche Timu Janet Leigh because she was in Psycho?

Caroline 32:08

Yes, but I don't know. I think Anne Heche did a really great job in, um... I think I've only seen her in one thing, and I think it was I Know What You Did Last Summer, and she was fucking great

Anne 32:17

Okay. RIP. I shouldn't be making fun of her.

Caroline 32:20

RIP.

Anne 32:20

I take it back. what do you think about Carter? Not Aaron Eckhart

Caroline 32:25

yeah. how did this get me to get to this whole thing about, like, how did he even end up here? Is this, like, a geo-release program? it's quite confusing how he ended up in this situation to begin with. He could have done with a bit more backstory,

Anne 32:36

Yeah

Caroline 32:36

And I don't get why he for so long made exceptions for Saffron Burrows, whose character I can't remember.

Anne 32:45

Susan McAllister. Do

Caroline 32:45

yes, feel like he was like gave her more of a break than he should have quite a few times

Anne 32:51

you think they did it?

Caroline 32:52

No. Do You

Anne 32:53

You know, I mean, I think they, they like each other, she gives him such, like, a satisfied look when he comes up with the shark when they're about to extract the serum

Caroline 33:00

I think she likes for him to want her, but I don't think she actually has any

Anne 33:04

Yeah. There's a lot of sexual tension, probably unconsummated sexual tension. Yeah, in terms of, like, how did he get these skills? So he's, like, a shark matador, his background is he's a smuggler. So how do those two things align? Right? Like, I can see that he would be a good diver and that he'd be good at holding his breath, but where did he learn to ride sharks? Did he ride sharks down to the shipwrecks?

Caroline 33:27

I, yes, I felt like that could have done with a bit more explanation

Anne 33:30

I think we can put him into, that Byronic hero category that we've discussed in the past. he says, "I never went to class," which is a very Dylan Riggins, Troy, we talked about Troy, in our Black Phone episode. Troy from, Reality Bites. do you think he's handsome?

Caroline 33:48

No.

Anne 33:49

No.

Caroline 33:49

you?

Anne 33:50

Yeah. I mean, he's sun-kissed, muscly, just the right amount of chest hair.

Caroline 33:53

Mm-hmm. Eh.

Anne 33:56

which my upper body strength could never, right? Like

Caroline 33:59

don't know. He's, too clean cut and boring

Anne 34:03

Okay.

Caroline 34:03

looking

Anne 34:04

He's too brooding.

Caroline 34:05

No, I prefer them more brooding.

Anne 34:07

you want more brooding than him?

Caroline 34:08

He's not brooding enough

Anne 34:10

All right. Fuck, marry, kill. Preacher, Scroggs, Carter.

Caroline 34:14

Scroggs, do you mean Scoggins or whatever?

Anne 34:16

Scoggins, Scroggs, Michael Rapaport, whatever.

Caroline 34:18

Michael Rappaport. Well, kill him, first of all.

Anne 34:21

Me too

Caroline 34:21

I guess I would fuck him more because I'd rather marry LL Cool J and just like hang out with him all the time.

Anne 34:26

I mean, Ella Kulchae loves animals. He can cook. He's got a sense of humor.

Caroline 34:31

Mm-hmm

Anne 34:32

even go to church for him maybe. Maybe.

Caroline 34:33

No, uh, Yeah, We would have to have a discussion about that, but it would be like an obligation fuck 'cause I actually don't have any interest with...

Anne 34:43

Carter?

Caroline 34:43

Yeah

Anne 34:44

I would not feel obligated. I would be fine with that

Caroline 34:46

I'd probably sooner fuck St- Stellar's skateboard.

Anne 34:49

Or Alexander Skarsgård.

Caroline 34:51

Yeah. Oh, fuck yeah. I

Anne 34:53

yeah he's so blasé about, like, leaving parts of his body in the water. You know, like, after he's, like, gotten the license plate off the shark, he's just, lingering on the ladder, and I'm just like, Get out."

Caroline 35:06

Yeah.

Anne 35:07

And also, like, after they blow up the shark at the end, He's dangling his feet in the water, and it's like, wouldn't you be worried that would, given the lore, whether it's science or not, about sharks being attracted to blood, there's a lot of blood in the water. it could attract just normal sharks And he gets a few of the best lines, the one I already mentioned about the goddamn food chain, and then the final climax line, "And that's what an 8,000-pound Mako thinks about, about freedom, about the deep blue sea." Which is like Leonardo DiCaprio meme pointing at the screen. He said deep blue sea.

Caroline 35:38

Mm-hmm.

Anne 35:39

did you hold your breath when they swim?

Caroline 35:41

I did try to, and then I also actually at the clock to see how long it was. So, in the first period of time they were underwater, Depending on which one of them you're following, it was one minute 16 seconds and eight milliseconds to one minute 17 seconds. And then the second time when it's just him, it was one minute 17 seconds 20 and he, in that period of time, also screamed, so he, uh, like, let out a bunch of air

Anne 36:11

Oh yeah, I hate that. that would make it really hard. I was sick when I watched this, and I had, like, this really bad chest cough and congestion, and I was not able to hold my breath throughout their, the time that they were underwater

Caroline 36:22

I attempted to, but

Anne 36:24

I was running out of w- air when they, like, opened the door in that final swim for the surface scene, and they really did take their time, before they start swimming up. I'm like, Get up there."

Caroline 36:32

going like, "Hey," thumbs up or whatever, and it's

Anne 36:34

You have so far to go. Do we have to worry about the bends there? Like, I'm so scared of the bends about if you rise too rapidly. I looked up the record for breath holding just 'cause I was kind of curious. What do you think it is?

Caroline 36:48

I have no idea. Just tell me.

Anne 36:50

29 minutes, three seconds.

Caroline 36:51

What?

Anne 36:52

But this Vitomar Maricic, I don't know, he used pure oxygen before. So they, He engaged in denitrogenation, which is the process of replacing the nitrogen in your lungs with oxygen. So you, like, inhaled, pure oxygen for, like, a while. So if you just jump in and hold your breath, this isn't possible. But the person who holds the record for unaided is a Serbian free diver, Branko Petrovic, and he did it for 11 minutes and 54 seconds unaided. So no weird science going on behind the scenes. 11 minutes, 54 seconds Your face right now is so appalled

Caroline 37:25

Well, I'm also just like, I'm sorry, I guess whenever there's things like this, I'm like, but why?" could you not use this energy towards something else that's like,

Anne 37:33

I used to work with a guy who would do static breath-holding competitions, and he could do about five minutes

Caroline 37:38

But for what, for what? Why?

Anne 37:40

I don't know. like, why, why climb Everest? Why sit in the water for five minutes?

Caroline 37:44

Why?

Anne 37:45

Because it's there. The pool is there. Do you wanna know which celebrity holds the record for longest breath holding?

Caroline 37:52

Sure

Anne 37:53

Kate Winslet, seven minutes and 15 seconds. She was filming underwater scenes for Avatar: The Way of Water. And the second one is Tom Cruise. He c- he held his breath for six minutes for Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation. But most people, 30 to 90 seconds

Caroline 38:07

Right.

Anne 38:08

And if you're swimming, it's less 'cause you're moving. And Preacher, who's just been chilling in the kitchen, like sampling his cakes, and he's actually in his chef's uniform. They're wearing wetsuits. he's at a severe disadvantage, both in terms of you would think his capacity for this and the fact that he's gonna be getting dragged down by his clothes. Well, should we talk about Preach?

Caroline 38:26

Sure.

Anne 38:26

There's a lot of Ls in this. Samuel L. Jackson, LL Cool J. He's so lovable in this

Caroline 38:32

He really is. So in the beginning they're having that, party, and there's music playing, and he's, like, makes a whole point about, like, hating the song that's

Anne 38:41

What song was it?

Caroline 38:42

was like, Who is this art- like, why does he hate this so much?" And they're teasing him about it, and apparently it's, it was, like, a religious... music that he was saying he hated

Anne 38:49

Hmm. That's something I've never clocked. He does have a song in this.

Caroline 38:52

Yes.

Anne 38:53

like a shark fin."

Caroline 38:54

shark's fin." Yeah

Anne 38:55

I picture like parents who have dressed their kids up as Jaws with like a hat shark costume, like a toddler with a shark costume on when I hear those lyrics.

Caroline 39:05

Mm-hmm.

Anne 39:05

he needs to be applauded because he's acting by himself for most of this movie and only talking to that bird. So I love when they're in that elevator shaft and, you know, it's that all hope is lost moment, and you hear more banging from above, and you think it's another shark, and then he just opens the door with this like, Don't fuck with me" face and a salute. What's your favorite besides his self-recorded omelet legacy LL Cool J moment in this?

Caroline 39:30

gosh, It's hard to pick a favorite. I just feel like every time he comes on screen, I'm so happy, you

Anne 39:35

it's delightful

Caroline 39:36

he's got a great, like, narrative with himself or narrative with the camera, He's got a great energy. He's I don't know. I just feel like I'm just- Always grateful that it's a him scene.

Anne 39:47

When he comes on, you're like, "Yes!"

Caroline 39:49

I'm like, "Yeah, this is the part I like."

Anne 39:51

Like, I like when he's clutching a frying pan when he first realizes he's in the water with a shark. It's like, what is that gonna do? Very, uh, Marion from Raiders of the Lost Ark. She takes out someone with a frying pan. and then of course it's his, uh, relativity explanation, which is classic. Grab hold of a hot pan, a second can seem like an hour. Put your hands on a hot woman and an hour can seem like a second. It's all relative."

Caroline 40:13

Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

Anne 40:14

I think it's interesting that his name is Sherman Dudley. Like, Sherman Dudley. did the writers sit there in the writer's room and be like, "What's the dorkiest name?" No offense to the Shermans and Dudleys out there, but what is the dorkiest name we can give this, like, really cool badass guy?

Caroline 40:29

I mean, I think it was established in When Harry Met Sally that Sherman is

Anne 40:33

Ride me big Sherman. Right? Is it Sherman in that? It is Sherman? Sheldon, which is also known as a dorky name because they chose it for that, what is that s-

Caroline 40:42

Yeah, the

Anne 40:43

Charlie Sheen thing? No, Big Ba- Big Bang, yeah, which I've never watched, but I'm aware that the character's name is Sheldon

Caroline 40:49

isn't Sherman, P. Sherman, 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney or something like that? Isn't that

Anne 40:53

I think so. Yeah, that sounds right. I think my other favorite moment... Well, I have two other favorite moments. One is the oven scene, which of course, as we said, the shark somehow manages to turn on intentionally or unintentionally, you know, that oven works fast. Like, my oven, I need like half an hour for it to be hot.

Caroline 41:11

And

Anne 41:11

but I guess it is a-

Caroline 41:13

oven that was like so I don't know

Anne 41:16

Industrial strength oven a restaurant

Caroline 41:18

get their, propane refilled?

Anne 41:20

Well, I think this whole facility is lined with gas, given how quickly it explodes.

Caroline 41:25

Hmm

Anne 41:25

just like gas in the cement walls. Right? This is, I think, our first biblical reference perhaps. I'm not Daniel when he faced the lion. I've got other plans." Right?

Caroline 41:35

I think there were a lot before that,

Anne 41:37

Where there?

Caroline 41:37

the most, apparent. I think there were... I mean, 'cause like I said, that part in the beginning, that was religious music already.

Anne 41:43

Mm.

Caroline 41:43

And then his name is Preach, and they, like, mention, I think there's so much religious stuff in it that I was kinda noticing this time watching it after listening to the How Did, How Did This Get Made mention. but I didn't write any of it down

Anne 41:55

I was a little mad when I listened to the How Did This Get Made episode on it because I had thought of, like, an Exorcist joke, and I was like, "Oh, they said an Exorcist joke." And I was like, "But did I just..." I listened to this probably years ago when you first... I haven't listened to it, like, six times like you, but I've listened to it twice, when you first recommended it to me and then again over the last few weeks. And I was like, I thought of an Exorcist joke. I thought of a ice is glacial joke," but maybe it was always just, like, in my head from the first time I listened to it

Caroline 42:19

Could have been. Mm-mm.

Anne 42:22

he axed through that oven. Like, that is not a big hole, and he's a big guy. That's a child-sized hole

Caroline 42:28

no, he's not fitting through that.

Anne 42:30

I love when he says, You ate my bird," and throws a soaked lighter at the gas stove. Where is Steve Sanders from 90210 to chainsaw that bird out of the shark's stomach, you know?

Caroline 42:41

the bird is such an asshole

Anne 42:43

Yes, but does it even know what it's saying? I don't know. I guess birds are pretty smart.

Caroline 42:47

They're smart. yeah.

Anne 42:48

I think they'll say what you train them to say

Caroline 42:50

they also kinda know stuff. I watch a lot of TikToks of talking birds, and I guess it depends on the bird, but a lot of times it seems like it's very apparent. Like, there was a bird who picked something up and put it on his head and was like, "Hat," on his own, but anyway

Anne 43:03

So you think this bird knows it was being insulting and...

Caroline 43:06

I think so.

Anne 43:07

Okay. Well, screw that bird then. I'm glad it died.

Caroline 43:09

maybe in a term of endearment way, like, um... What's that movie with Alec Baldwin? Outside Providence, how he calls his son Dildo.

Anne 43:16

Yeah. Hey, dildo. It's Simulation. I was talking about that movie yesterday.

Caroline 43:21

Were you? I haven't

Anne 43:22

Yeah.

Caroline 43:22

in, like, years.

Anne 43:24

Because I was with my niece and nephew who are in their early 20s, and for some reason... Oh, it was because, my niece called Sean Hatosy? Hatosy? I don't know how you pronounce his name. But she was talking about The Pit, and she was like, There's all this online thirst for the old guy in The Pit." And I was like, "Which old guy?" And she said, "Him." And I was like, "He is not that old." And then I told them about Outside Providence, and they had never heard of it. So

Caroline 43:47

Wow.

Anne 43:48

great movie. I have friends who were extras in that because,

Caroline 43:51

Mm-hmm

Anne 43:53

Uh, the other great LL Cool J moment is before they do the big long holding their breath swim to the top, which reminded me of Toy Story 3 when they all hold hands as they approach the fire in the dump, right? And it's this very, like, coming to terms with your possible death moment. I love his, Yea, though I walk through the valley of death, can I get an amen? Because I carry a big stick, and I'm the meanest motherfucker in the valley."

Caroline 44:16

You're right. That

Anne 44:17

One demon fish to go. Is it a demon fish, though? Is it just standing up for itself in an unfair situation

Caroline 44:24

maybe a little of both.

Anne 44:25

So let's talk about the Sharks. The Sharks got small too. How did they get so much more knowledgeable? Smart is different than knowledgeable, right? Or informed

Caroline 44:33

Well, I have this note here too. I'm like, "So the shark knew The helicopter mechanism was gonna fail?"

Anne 44:40

The

Caroline 44:40

there's no way.

Anne 44:41

winch. I- is there is there ever a scene in a movie ever in all time where a winch works? Right? Like, I can think of one in Jaws where it, like, gets stuck. I think there's maybe a winch scene in Stranger Things where it doesn't work. But like, you see a winch, you're like

Caroline 44:55

you're saying The shark has seen movies, and so the shark knew

Anne 44:59

The shark knows if a winch is involved, it will fail.

Caroline 45:02

Through the window.

Anne 45:03

Through the window. Everything happens through the window. We don't know, how much the shark has been watching through the window, and it's clearly gained engineering knowledge of the blueprints, or maybe it's been listening to Scroggs, Scoggins, Scoggins talk

Caroline 45:15

Right, because someone also taught it English

Anne 45:17

Yep. There's a scene where it's a shark POV scene, and it's literally heading straight for the door when they're climbing the elevator shaft. So the sharks, at the very least, have been lingering outside windows watching the scientists exit and enter doors, and arguably know how ovens work, as we already said. They recognize what a gun does. They know how cameras work. They know to take out the cameras. I love that scene where you see the shark take out the camera with its open mouth. It's great. As we said, they can't swim backwards, so this whole ramming thing is not possible

Caroline 45:44

At least though in the movie they acknowledge that. They're like, "I didn't just see that, did I?" Like, they all have a moment where they're like, "What just happened?"

Anne 45:51

But I think even if a shark realized, I need to be able to ram," it would not physically be able to do it. It's not an intelligence thing, it's a physical thing

Caroline 45:59

Right

Anne 46:00

So, how strategic are they? When Thomas Jane comes into the water, does it pretend to go after the air tank so that it can get into the lab so that it can wreak havoc in there? is it like, "I need to get into that lab. I'm bait." Just like she's bait

Caroline 46:15

My goodness, this is like, I don't even know how to have this conversation. Cause I'm like h- I don't know It's such a flawed logic. I don't know

Anne 46:24

Yeah.

Caroline 46:25

it, you know?

Anne 46:27

We've got English-speaking sharks who understand how cameras, guns, can predict... I mean, maybe these sharks are like freaking Hannibal Lecter hanging onto the pen, waiting for a moment, yeah

Caroline 46:38

Let me just say I am married to an architect who clearly, as evidenced by this podcast, I'm obsessed with. So I like pay attention to his life. have blueprints all over our house. I can't read a blueprint. have them literally framed on our walls, and if you asked me to tell you what it says, I would be like, Uh, this is my own house, is, maybe that's a door? I don't,

Anne 47:00

I've been trying to use the IKEA software to redesign a kitchen 'cause our kitchen is not functioning anymore, and, I can't fucking do it. I can't

Caroline 47:08

Yeah

Anne 47:08

out how to use the IKEA software. So yeah, these sharks are not just smart, They've been to Caltech for four years.

Caroline 47:15

Yes.

Anne 47:15

But, you know, from the sh-

Caroline 47:16

we saying that Scoggins has been teaching them at night?

Anne 47:23

What if he's been listening to audiobooks at night and the sharks have been listening to him? Or he's been reading his notes out loud.

Caroline 47:29

Oh, dictating

Anne 47:31

He's been dictating his notes about how he raised the fences with the titanium chain link

Caroline 47:36

so my grandfather was an immunologist, and I have these recordings of his voice because he would make voice n- notes, And I had the tapes.

Anne 47:43

So you must be an immunologist too if you've listened to that

Caroline 47:46

uh, yes, obviously I listened to about five minutes

Anne 47:49

So you know, just like the shark.

Caroline 47:50

everything, yeah.

Anne 47:52

Um,

Caroline 47:52

I can tell you I know as much as, RFK Jr

Anne 47:56

hope you know more than that

Caroline 47:57

I know at least as much as RFK Jr

Anne 48:00

as I pointed out earlier, from the sharks' perspective, this is a tragedy. It's a horror movie for them where they're the victims of medical experimentation and fail to escape. Poor sharks, experimented on without their consent We haven't talked about perhaps the most iconic scene in this with Samuel L. Jackson

Caroline 48:18

Hmm.

Anne 48:18

he's wearing the preppiest, like, white golfer outfit in that.

Caroline 48:22

Yeah.

Anne 48:23

And apparently in real life he was, like, going golfing, you know, in between takes. So he might have had, like, actual tee time, like, right after that scene. So, He's so good. I love the way he delivers a line. That moment where he's like, "Well, well, well, am I the only asshole here who finds that a tad bit odd? They're after us."

Caroline 48:39

Mm-hmm.

Anne 48:40

He's so good. I wanted to hear him say, "I've had it with these motherfucking sharks on my motherfucking lap." Did you ever watch Snakes on a Plane?

Caroline 48:48

No.

Anne 48:49

You, you should add it to your snark watch, repertoire. It's, it's great

Caroline 48:52

I will, yeah

Anne 48:53

In the same way. You know, it's a little bit more over the top than this, I'd say. Like, it's taking itself just that little bit less seriously. No, it would be in between this and Sharknado

Caroline 49:04

Okay. I

Anne 49:04

you think water moves fast? You should see ice. moves like it has a mind, like it knows it killed the world once and got a taste for murder

Caroline 49:12

As we've already said, How Did This Get Made makes a whole point of this, but

Anne 49:16

Ice is glacial. Ice does not move fast. But an

Caroline 49:18

slow.

Anne 49:19

an avalanche moves fast, right?

Caroline 49:21

Right, which is not ice.

Anne 49:23

No, that's snow

Caroline 49:24

Yeah,

Anne 49:25

one thing I thought was interesting is they sort of foreshadow here, "Nature is lethal, but it doesn't hold a candle to man."

Caroline 49:31

Hmm.

Anne 49:32

one thing one might expect is for somebody to do something awful, like he's implying that we're all gonna fall apart, but everybody actually behaves well throughout the movie. Nobody, like, throws somebody in the water in front of them to to escape the shark themselves. You know, like those kind of thing you see in, like, The Walking Dead

Caroline 49:48

does the Costanza and the fire alarm.

Anne 49:51

Yeah. You know, and that's the message you always hear in, like, a lot of horror movies well, y- with Walking Dead, the zombies aren't really the problem as the show progresses. It's man. But nothing really comes of that warning. All the sins made by mankind happen before the events of the movie

Caroline 50:06

right. I think it's just all reiterating that if man hadn't gotten involved, none of this would've happened in the first place

Anne 50:13

And Dr. McAllister ultimately does kind of a stupid thing, but the right thing by sacrificing herself.

Caroline 50:19

Uh, I have a bone to pick. She did not intend to sacrifice herself. That bar broke off the wall. She thought she was gonna get back out.

Anne 50:27

She put herself at risk

Caroline 50:29

She put herself at risk but she fully intended to live.

Anne 50:31

And she shouldn't have swum out that far. No. Well, Samuel L. Jackson gave us one of the greatest shock jump scares deaths in film history, I think, with his death. It, it's gotta be in the running, right?

Caroline 50:44

I mean, truly, I don't even know how many times I've watched this movie, and every single time I laugh

Anne 50:51

Yeah. I don't remember how I felt the first time I watched this movie. I don't remember if I was in the cinema. I just remember being, like, so amazed and shocked and, yeah, laughing

Caroline 51:01

yeah, I mean, I was like on my... It was like on TV and I was on my couch at home, and I was like, "What?" It's like

Anne 51:06

Yeah.

Caroline 51:07

just

Anne 51:07

Cause we are trained by movies. When we see a motivat- a motivational pre-war, you know, pre-battle speech like Braveheart, Gladiator, Independence Day, uh, you know, you can go back to Shakespeare with, uh, the Band of Brothers speech in, um, Henry V. And then you know, his first instruction: "We're not going to fight anymore. First, we're gonna seal off this pool," and then bam. And it's, it's so good

Caroline 51:31

the thing is like I think a lot of times when that kind of jump scare happens, it's not mid-sentence. Like, I

Anne 51:37

Right.

Caroline 51:37

very unique that like the speech isn't over, you know? Like, it's

Anne 51:41

No. He's like first. That indicates there's something more to come. And like imagine if Quint had been cut off halfway through his USS Indianapolis speech with like the shark busting in through the window and dragging him out,

Caroline 51:52

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm

Anne 51:53

and then the two remaining sharks just like share him. Again, another like gleeful death the way it is filmed anything else you wanna say about, uh, Russell? What's his name? Russell something. Russell Franklin.

Caroline 52:05

Is that Samuel L. Jackson?

Anne 52:06

Yeah, that's his character's name

Caroline 52:08

didn't like ever l- I've so many s- seen this so many times. I never learned

Anne 52:12

Don't know anyone's names?

Caroline 52:13

"Who's Russell?" Uh, no

Anne 52:17

Dr. Susan McAllister, what a beauty. What a name, Saffron Burrows. And that's the source of the line my husband and I quote all the time when we think our children have done something clever. I think she gets the winner of the worst birthday award. It's her birthday

Caroline 52:32

Yeah. She's also the villain

Anne 52:35

Yes. Well, in her defense, she has a noble cause. She wants to do something good, but she's obviously going about it in a very unethical way. Do you think she's 100% the villain?

Caroline 52:45

Yes, because I also think that that, my intentions were good excuse is also used by, like, colonizers and slave owners and

Anne 52:54

Tuskegee Syphilis Study.

Caroline 52:56

and, you know, like all sorts of things. Like, "Oh, well, my intentions were good."

Anne 53:02

What's a little collateral damage?

Caroline 53:04

doubles down and triples down. You know, she lets the shark go after he's already, like, bitten the arm off. she tries to rescue her research. there's- it's just time and time again, she doesn't know when to let go

Anne 53:16

I don't have a problem with her trying to rescue the research. Like, I do have a problem with her not, like what she did to begin with. But like, I kinda see the point of well, all this has happened, I might as well grab the disc

Caroline 53:25

Yeah. I mean, I guess at a certain point, yes. Also, again, don't wanna like plagiarize How Did This Get Made? They make this point there too, but like when she tells that story, I had the same thought when she tells the story about each time I told, like when her dad, each time her dad asked where the mom was and she told him

Anne 53:42

Now I can. Yeah,

Caroline 53:43

was dead. Like, why do you, why tell him? I mean, I was listening to a, um, That Aged Well about Notebook, which did not age well shockingly.

Anne 53:51

I bet.

Caroline 53:51

Um,

Anne 53:52

it in years, but

Caroline 53:52

there's a whole bit where their kids come to visit and they're like, "Your kids are here," and she's like, "My kids?" the doctors l- and the nurses are like, No, his kids," 'cause you don't wanna do that

Anne 54:04

Yeah.

Caroline 54:04

to a patient with dementia,

Anne 54:06

Yeah.

Caroline 54:06

don't torture him then.

Anne 54:07

Yeah. Go tell him. Did the How Did This Get Made bring up, what was that, 50 First Dates movie with Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler?

Caroline 54:13

I don't know 'cause I never saw that

Anne 54:14

Spoiler alert for 50 First Dates. she, like, forgets the day the next day, and then he, creates a video so, like, when she wakes up and she has kids, it's like, Actually, you're married to me, and we have this kid, and here's, like, a snapshot of your life," right? Imagine the day you woke up and were about to go into labor because she has kids, and you have no memory of being pregnant, and you don't know the man who impregnante- impregnated you. y- like, it's, it's such a fucked up concept when you think about it

Caroline 54:38

Yeah, and I heard that was based on, like, semi true story?

Anne 54:41

I'm not sure. It's all very cute and romantic in the movie, but then you look, take a step back and you're like, "No." Can I ask, why do people always slice their palms in movies? there are tendons. If your palm is hurt, you can't grip a weapon. why there?

Caroline 54:54

I don't know.

Anne 54:55

And they always do it I wanted to Google, like, best place to cut if you need blood, but I was, like, on my work computer and I was like, "This is gonna trigger, self-harm stuff." But I don't know. I feel like I would do, like, my outer thigh or something

Caroline 55:07

Why do you need blood? I mean, I guess I'm just like

Anne 55:09

People always need blood in horror movies for like a ritual or whatever,

Caroline 55:12

if the blood supposedly immediately transferred to the shark, does she need to actually be in the water? Couldn't

Anne 55:18

Yeah, just put your hand in the water. a little hand dangle. I love the moment when you think maybe, you know, she's like, "Come to mama," and you think maybe the shark isn't going to eat her. Like, it pauses, and then it's like chomp again. And as I've said before, this is the way I want, Chris Pratt in a later Jurassic World movie to go, that Blue just is like, "I'm fucking hungry and I'm eating you today. We have no connection." Like

Caroline 55:41

Right

Anne 55:42

so yeah, every time I see footage of Ocean Ramsey, that kinda shark whisperer girl, I'm like, Okay, you've been lucky so far." Fun fact about her character, the original movie was much more sympathetic to her, but test audiences hated it, cut scenes to make her more sympathetic, and reshot it. So apparently Thomas Jane is supporting a re-release of what it was before, where she has scenes that make her a little bit more sympathetic

Caroline 56:03

Yeah, like she was originally gonna be the hero and everyone hated her 'cause

Anne 56:07

Yeah

Caroline 56:08

as her fault entirely, which it was

Anne 56:10

So lots of subversions of expectations and tropes as we've talked about the mid fire up speech death with Samuel Jackson, the original sexy teenagers not getting eaten. You expect, as the movie is self-aware enough to point out, that the comic relief Black guy is gonna get killed. He says brothers never make it out of situations like this. And you expect Dr. McAllister to get saved and have a romantic kissy face scene with Carter, but no

Caroline 56:36

Mm-hmm.

Anne 56:36

And then I guess we can't not talk about, her grounding, using the wetsuit to protect herself from the electricity, which is just obviously an excuse to see the willowy Saffron Burrows in her undies. And she does look great. She looks like a '90s Calvin Klein model with her haughty model face

Caroline 56:52

Yeah, she looks amazing

Anne 56:53

I like her drapey cardigans too when she's, like, walking around the lab. I'm very much a drapey cardigan teacher, so. okay, anything else you wanna say about any of the characters?

Caroline 57:03

Mm.

Anne 57:04

Oh, one more thing about Stellan Skarsgård. he definitely gets the worst death, another gleeful, torturous death, right? He gets his arm ripped off. He's whipped around in that storm. He's used as a battering ram. and, uh, just imagine all that time he spent just, like, helpless in the water, wondering when is his oxygen... And where is that oxygen coming from? I don't know, but he's still obviously breathing. No one suffers more than him in this

Caroline 57:29

Agree

Anne 57:29

I found a Reddit thread where a guy, a username LundgrensFrontKick, did an in-depth analysis, and all sorts of calculations concluding that he traveled 1.12 miles, and I'm pretty sure he's the same guy who's on the Deep Blue Sea podcast I mentioned too. So somebody who likes to really go deep. it's like this long, long, long, long, long Reddit post all about, Oh, well, if he, you know, went up the elevator, that would be this much distance, and we add that to whatever." It's kind of funny What do you think is the most upsetting moment?

Caroline 57:57

That, if you ask me, like, what has historically made me the most upset, it's watching him being pushed, because he's got the oxygen. Because as we've talked about before, like, it's Not the dying that is scary, it's the being aware that you're about to die

Anne 58:13

Not being able to stop it. Yeah, they do not put him out of his misery for a long time.

Caroline 58:17

he's also looking at, at the person he loves and he

Anne 58:20

Yeah

Caroline 58:20

like she's in peril and she, he can't do anything about it, and he, he's gonna be a part of happens to her next, and it's probably not gonna be good, you know?

Anne 58:30

Yeah. I think for me it's LL Cool J in the oven because it makes me claustrophobic when he starts coughing

Caroline 58:36

Mm-hmm.

Anne 58:37

I also love, even though it's like people move, the tension of the breaking splintering glass when, Dr. Jim Whitlock is thrown into the glass.

Caroline 58:46

chunk comes down

Anne 58:48

Yeah, and you're like, "Shit, move." it's easy for me to, coach from the sidelines when we never know how we would actually react in a fight, flight, freeze response. But I feel like they should have moved faster.

Caroline 59:00

Yeah

Anne 59:01

what about horror beneath the surface?

Caroline 59:03

that we have learned nothing about where our limitations should cease in terms of playing God?

Anne 59:11

definitely. especially with our treatment of animals,

Caroline 59:14

Mm-hmm

Anne 59:14

and animal experimentation. I looked at the PETA website, and it's not great, one stat that stood out to me about human experimentation on animals is that 95% of drugs shown to be safe and effective in animal testing actually fail when they're used on humans. that suffering isn't even worth it. And again, I'm not a scientist, not an expert. I don't really know enough to comment, but I have my qualms, to quote Rosemary from Widow's Bay if you're there yet.

Caroline 59:38

science is very complicated and I think it's harder to talk about when it comes to science because the end goal in some of this is cure horrible diseases and stuff like that, like Alzheimer's. Not all of the end goal is that. Some of it is eugenics type of science, obviously is horrific. AI certainly, there's a lot of ways that- People go too far even when there's all sorts of signs out there that it's not right, and they ignore it in the name of what necessarily? I'm not sure.

Anne 1:00:07

Which we go into a lot in our Tuskegee Syphilis Study episode

Caroline 1:00:11

Mm-hmm.

Anne 1:00:11

Well, if you want to go to PETA's website to sign petitions or encourage Congress not to test these sort of things on animals and find cruelty-free products, there's lots of stuff there. I also found information on PETA about poor treatment, villainization of sharks, which we've talked about in our Jaws episode, but also, you know, marine life in captivity. You know, we've all seen-- well, not we've all. Any '90s kid has seen Free Willy. and I saw an Action for Dolphins website that is trying to get breeding dolphins in captivity banned, and it said, I thought this was an interesting quote, "Conservation is the lie used to justify exploitation." So basically, if you're at a place that allows you to swim with and touch dolphins, it's probably not really about conservation. We all love them. We're fascinated by them. They're beautiful. But deep down, I think we should know it's not right that they're in captivity, and our entertainment shouldn't matter more than the mental and physical health of these animals. And I can understand why the killer whales are fighting back and, you know, attacking boats and stuff.

Caroline 1:01:07

Sure. and I think there was a good demonstration of that in Tiger King, which, the very blatant bad actors like the Tiger King, but also Car- what is her name? Carole something Carole Baskin, her big cat rescue place was supposedly the right side, but I think we all saw that it was

Anne 1:01:29

Wasn't, yeah.

Caroline 1:01:29

no better,

Anne 1:01:30

Mm-hmm Yeah, I have spent a significant amount of time, you know, going to zoos with little kids, but I really, like, I don't like it. I don't wanna do it anymore. I don't feel right about it

Caroline 1:01:39

going to the zoo. and now, I really don't.

Anne 1:01:42

Yeah, the last time I was at the LA Zoo, there was a tiger just pacing. Just pacing, pacing, pacing, and I was like, "This isn't right Another deeper horror is Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia. Like, I want Alzheimer's cured too. It scares the shit out of me that you could have, an okay life and then end up like that. It's awful. So I have sympathy for Dr. McAllister's desperation to cure it, even if I disapprove of her methods

Caroline 1:02:04

Another thing people could do is allow for, dying with dignity.

Anne 1:02:09

Yeah.

Caroline 1:02:09

Instead

Anne 1:02:10

Or like...

Caroline 1:02:10

people have those last potentially several decades of their lives be terrifying and horrible, let them move on

Anne 1:02:18

Maybe we should watch Midsommar soon. Have you seen that yet?

Caroline 1:02:20

of course I haven't.

Anne 1:02:21

Okay, I'm gonna make you soon. same guy as Hereditary, so... if you know, you know. If you've seen Midsommar, you'll know what I'm talking about. Okay. Questions?

Caroline 1:02:29

Hmm.

Anne 1:02:31

How does any of this work? Don't worry about it.

Caroline 1:02:33

Yeah. I couldn't begin

Anne 1:02:36

Uh, one thing is could they have actually closed the door on rushing water? I think not. Like, the pressure of water would be so much that, despite Carter's lean muscles, I don't think he would've been able to do it. Tell me about the physics of that Scroggs... I still don't know his name.

Caroline 1:02:50

it's so funny 'cause you always know everyone's name. like the one name I remember,

Anne 1:02:54

Scroggins.

Caroline 1:02:55

Oh,

Anne 1:02:56

Why is it so freaking flammable at this facility? I'd love to see a myth buster on how there's so much flammable stuff in the control room that the level of fire in a storm where everything is wet is just so extreme

Caroline 1:03:07

That's one of my favorite things when movies have the most obnoxious, explosions or, like, debris from a thing. Like, I always think of that in, um, at the end of Goonies when he's like, There'll be no sighting of this or anything ever," and he throws it up

Anne 1:03:20

Yeah.

Caroline 1:03:21

and it's like 80 million pieces of paper.

Anne 1:03:22

Yeah.

Caroline 1:03:23

Like, this is, like, two pages.

Anne 1:03:25

Yeah. You gotta go for the drama, right? Criticism

Caroline 1:03:28

None. None. Perfect

Anne 1:03:30

Yeah. Yeah. because I have none, I looked up one-star reviews, and I found this one on IMDb that made me laugh. A rowdy clan of cartoon sharks meets the castaways of Gilligan's Island in a Jurassic Park/Jaws in a Titanic of a flop. The movie drags not only its income to Davy Jones's locker, but unfortunately the career of Samuel Jackson as well. Shiver me timbers. Sam made about the same impact as Mace Windu and was chomped in half in the first 30 minutes, leaving Captain Cool J to take over the scene in his dynamic blockbuster debut." it's a one-star review, but I thought it was kind of funny.

Caroline 1:04:00

I have several problems with it. But especially Mace Windu is the only Jedi with a purple lightsaber, and I have two children who made purple lightsabers to be like Mace Windu. So disagree

Anne 1:04:12

he did have an impact. Okay.

Caroline 1:04:14

Yeah

Anne 1:04:14

I mean, yeah, as you said, the criticism is what makes it fun. if

Caroline 1:04:17

Mm-hmm.

Anne 1:04:18

doesn't ring true as a top-tier scientist and it's wildly inter- unrealistic, like, that's part of the fun.

Caroline 1:04:23

Wait, I do have criticism.

Anne 1:04:25

Oh, okay.

Caroline 1:04:26

the religious stuff. It's

Anne 1:04:27

Yeah

Caroline 1:04:27

not necessary. It annoyed me every time it came up. I was not here for that

Anne 1:04:32

This movie kind of has a pro-religion, anti-science perspective given that a man of the people and a man of God are the only ones who survive and therefore triumph over the evil scientists. Do you think I'm reading into that too deeply or what?

Caroline 1:04:47

No, I do not. No, I do not.

Anne 1:04:49

So yeah, I, um, that criticism.

Caroline 1:04:52

concur

Anne 1:04:53

Okay. Survival, what did we learn?

Caroline 1:04:54

Don't fuck with sharks?

Anne 1:04:55

yeah, don't fuck with cats. Don't fuck with sharks. Don't play God.

Caroline 1:04:58

Mm-hmm

Anne 1:04:59

by the Harvard Compact, which doesn't exist but sounds great because it's Harvard. Follow bioethical standards when you're experimenting. carry something pointy with you swimming. It doesn't have to be a crucifix. Like, maybe they could make swimsuits that have, like, a built-in shark stabber in case you get attacked

Caroline 1:05:18

Or just like swim in a pool instead. Mm-hmm

Anne 1:05:21

Well, don't stand so close to the edge of a shark tank. Don't dangle your feet in shark water, and don't dangle your feet off the bed while you're at it in case the monster under the bed or your sleep paralysis demon gets you

Caroline 1:05:31

And don't cut your hand on your palm. You need that.

Anne 1:05:34

Somewhere else. No, don't cut anywhere. Don't exchange blood to become family or attract sharks or perform a ritual

Caroline 1:05:44

And don't put milk in your omelet.

Anne 1:05:47

Yes. there's also an anti-smoking message in this. You joked in "The Black Phone" that it had a pro-coke message. There's definitely an anti-smoking message here. And did you know you can swim with your period? I know you won't swim anytime, but the "See Jurassic Right Shark" episode that Steven Ray Morris had this expert on, she calls bullshit on the shark smelling a drop of blood a mile away sort of thing

Caroline 1:06:08

I have an IUD, so I don't get a period anymore, but that's good to know.

Anne 1:06:12

Good to know. Yep. anything else?

Caroline 1:06:13

Mm-mm.

Anne 1:06:14

All right. What has brought you a bit of joy this week? What's our palate cleanser? I mean, not that we need it for this, but

Caroline 1:06:20

finally watched Hacks season five, which was great, and the last season. I will say trigger warning anyone has had, a loved one with a terminal illness, there is an element of that towards the end that can be very, very rough. but I thought it was lovely. And then also I'm really enjoying, on TikTok there's been this trend of, shooting an empty chair and then using this like violin music to be like, "When Netflix calls me for a documentary about X, Y, Z." Like I

Anne 1:06:47

Oh, yeah, yeah, I've seen this.

Caroline 1:06:48

Yeah, when Netflix calls me for a documentary on how I supposedly ruined the chat as an Android user.

Anne 1:06:54

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those are funny

Caroline 1:06:56

know, all those things. So I've been enjoying that trend

Anne 1:06:59

I have one. Sheep Detectives. I know it's old news probably by the time this comes out, but I laughed, I cried, and I laughed so hard I cried. it's very cute So what's up next for us? What's our homework?

Caroline 1:07:10

So in the spirit of, what's the word I'm looking for? Rogue doctors, um, we're gonna- and neuroscience, we're gonna be watching, Dr. Death, the TV miniseries. I watched it on Amazon Prime, but I think the first time I watched it, it was on Hulu. So it's Christian Slater, Alec Baldwin, and Joshua Jackson performing the season one of the podcast as a TV miniseries, Dr. Death

Anne 1:07:36

I've got one episode to go.

Caroline 1:07:37

I watched all of it and I'm, I also listened to the podcast again.

Anne 1:07:41

I'm listening to the podcast. I actually decided to get Audible so that I could listen to it.

Caroline 1:07:45

Good. the podcast is really good. I'm glad I list- re-listened to it.

Anne 1:07:49

All right. What recommendations do you have to go with Deep Blue Sea?

Caroline 1:07:52

Okay, so we mentioned Janice from Sopranos is in it, so wanted to recommend Sopranos. I also, I love LL Cool J. he was in a movie that I loved called Toys, which How Did This Get

Anne 1:08:04

Oh yeah, you've mentioned that. Yeah

Caroline 1:08:06

I do like Toys a lot. I used to rent it a lot from Blockbuster, so wanted to recommend that. Also, anytime I see LL Cool J, I think about the greatest clip that has ever existed of anything ever, which is Tom Holland doing, umbrella on Lip Sync Battle. so wanted to recommend Lip Sync Battle, and specifically Tom Holland on it. thought

Anne 1:08:26

what's LL Cool J's connection to that?

Caroline 1:08:28

He's

Anne 1:08:28

just like that... He's the host. Okay. I didn't know that. I've never actually watched the show. I've seen the clip, but I didn't know LL Cool J was involved.

Caroline 1:08:34

he... Yes, he's the host

Anne 1:08:36

Oh, okay.

Caroline 1:08:37

Yeah, you can

Anne 1:08:38

This is a revelation

Caroline 1:08:39

he's like blown a-

Anne 1:08:41

I was so focused on, Zendaya that I just didn't, notice. I'm focused on Tom Holland and, and her reaction that I never even noticed

Caroline 1:08:49

he's standing right next to her. It's a good show. There's a lot of really fun, episodes of that. I also, like, for a long time everyone really hated Dane Cook, and I read that he, like, steals jokes and stuff like that. But to your point that you made earlier, like, sometimes you're like, Did I think of that myself, or was it in my subconscious?" don't know, that can be a hard thing to pin down or whatever. But he had this whole bit about a person who, like, survived a shark attack by punching the shark in the face, and it was hilarious, and I always loved listening to it. also, he was accused of joke theft by Joe Rogan and Louis CK, two people who I have zero respect for, so I don't know. revisit Dane Cook. He might be fine. and then Stella Scar- Stellan- Stellar Skateboard, should say, I wanted to recommend Good Will Hunting.

Anne 1:09:36

howdidthisgetmade. Copyright, hasht-, how did this get made?

Caroline 1:09:39

Obviously, if we haven't mentioned it enough, please listen to How Did This Get Made? All of the episodes are great. go find every movie you loved listen to

Anne 1:09:46

Are we allowed to steal their jokes if we, rabidly recommend them?

Caroline 1:09:50

them? I don't know. We'll have to ask them someday. Please come on our show, Paul. but anyway, Stellar Skateboard, is in Good Will Hunting of course, of course. I did mention the MCU here today, and then Andor of

Anne 1:10:05

And/or. Mm-hmm. That was on my list too Well, some of the podcasts I mentioned, Deep Blue Sea the podcast if you want like an hour per couple minutes of talk about it. I listened to one. It was good. I just didn't have time to go deeper into it. Evolution of Horror, How Did This Get Made? I don't think we could recommend that any harder. and See Jurassic Right with Steven Ray Morris. he interviews, it's in 2025, I didn't get the number, but it's a woman called, Amani Webber-Schultz. She's like a shark scientist, and she is one of the

Caroline 1:10:35

It sounded like you said Stark scientist,

Anne 1:10:38

Ned Stark or Tony Stark?

Caroline 1:10:40

like Tony Stark.

Anne 1:10:41

Um,

Caroline 1:10:42

Okay

Anne 1:10:42

She founded it's called MISS, M-I-S-S, and I can't remember exactly what it stands for, but it's like, to promote minorities in science. So look back on See Jurassic Right, and I think he has a more recent episode that I haven't gotten to yet, another, minority shark scientist uh, yeah, I've been dipping into that podcast, C Jurassic Right, since I discovered it back when we were doing Jurassic Park, and it's delightful. Have you ever listened to it?

Caroline 1:11:05

No, I should. I'm a fan of Steven Ray Morris from back in the day, of course. Steven

Anne 1:11:11

Steven! a delight. Thomas Jane is in The Mist, which is another horror movie. He's also known for The Punisher, which I haven't seen. But he's also in an episode of Arrested Development, so always Arrested Development. the line, Seven of us survived the slide and only five made it out," reminded me of Yellowjackets and Alive with Ethan Hawke, which we talked about in our Black Phone episode. if you're looking for books about nature being lethal but not holding a candle to man, The Rich Man's House and Fantastic Land are two books I really love. Did you know that both Thor and Falcon have shark documentaries? Yeah. Both Thor, Chris Hemsworth and the actor who plays the Falcon have shark documentaries on Disney. I don't know his name. I'm not as big a Marvel person as you. But, I think you should watch that because you're interested in sh- sharks, and you're interested in Marvel, and they have these little documentaries. So if you wanna see... Well, you're interested in Chris Hemsworth

Caroline 1:12:07

Yes.

Anne 1:12:08

Marvel

Caroline 1:12:09

skip, I'll skip Anthony Mackie's. I- he's in 8 Mile. I love 8 Mile. That's fine. That's enough for me

Anne 1:12:15

If you wanna watch Chris Hemsworth staring pensively out at the Australian ocean and surfing, it's kind of fun.

Caroline 1:12:20

it's not gonna be like, Benedict Cumberbatch saying penguins

Anne 1:12:23

I don't know. What was that from?

Caroline 1:12:25

Oh my gosh, I have to send you this. He did this, like, documentary, like a nature documentary, and he can't say the word penguin.

Anne 1:12:31

Oh, no.

Caroline 1:12:32

just, he just,

Anne 1:12:33

Like I can't say The Sixth Sense?

Caroline 1:12:35

Yeah, he's like penwing, pingwing, pengui- Like, he cannot say it. I'll s- I'll send you the clip

Anne 1:12:41

And it's me. for being able to hold your breath for a long time, The Island of the Sea- of Sea Women by Lisa See about the matriarchal society of Korean divers. It's great historical fiction, one of my favorite non-horror books that I've read recently. for big fake-looking waves, you know, The Perfect Storm, and then obviously for sinking things, Titanic, Poseidon Adventure. Um, The Exorcist for crucifix clutching, and for chefs, Chef, with Jon Favreau and John Leguizamo, and The Bear. if you're looking for a middle grade novel to read with your kids, as LL Cool J said, "Black men don't have enough ways to get killed. Leave that to the white folks." It reminded me of this survival book I read with my daughter called Stranded by Nikki Shannon Smith, and it's about a Black girl who comes from New York, but she, like, loves nature and gets a, that sort of pushback from her family and friends for wanting to be out there. And season three of You, which is my favorite season and it has Saffron Burrows in it. She plays the mom of Love. And I second Andor. That's it for me. Anything else? Well, if you have any recommendations for TV, podcasts, books, movies that would go along with this or that you'd like us to cover, please contact us. We're available on Instagram, Facebook, and Threads. You can follow us there. Do all the things podcasters ask you to do, like and subscribe, review us on Apple Podcasts You can email us at drawntodarknesspod@gmail.com. And most importantly, please tell a like-minded friend who's also drawn to darkness. And if like Shirley Jackson, you delight in what you fear, join us in a week or two at Drawn to Darkness Special shout out to Nancy Ano who painted our cover art. You can find her on Instagram at Nancy ano and to Harry Kidd for our intro and outro music. You can find him on Instagram at Harry J. Kidd and on Spotify.