Ep 365: Sex in Horror Movies (feat. Stepdean)
SARAH: Hey, what's up? Hello! Welcome to Sounds Fake But Okay, a podcast where an aro-ace girl (I'm Sarah, that's me.)
KAYLA: And a bi demisexual girl, (that's me Kayla.)
SARAH: Talk about all things to do with love, relationships, sexuality, and pretty much anything else we just don't understand.
KAYLA: On today's episode, ‘Sex in Horror Movies.’
BOTH: Sounds fake, but okay.
DEAN: Do you guys no longer do it at the same time?
KAYLA: Not on Zoom.
SARAH: We can't on Zoom.
KAYLA: We can't. It's fake, every time it's fake.
SARAH: It is fake every time. Well, because if we try and do it together, then usually Kayla will like try and slow down to like meet me and then we're doing it at different speeds so that when I line them up, it's like, “sound fake…” anyway
DEAN: I remember being actually kind of impressed at how synchronized it was the last time I did this. So, that's a little disappointing, I guess.
KAYLA: Ooh
SARAH: Well, we can impress you with our synchronicity next time we're together. Welcome back to the pod.
KAYLA: Hello.
SARAH: Hi. We have a special guest who neglected to introduce himself.
KAYLA: He's feeling shy.
SARAH: He's feeling shy.
DEAN: I'm feeling shy.
SARAH: I was trying to come up with a Dean Scattini that… but then that's just die…
KAYLA: Die Sca-shy. I have had Dean… so, when we were all in college, I would do this thing a lot to Dean because his name is Dean Scattini, I would be like, “Dan Scattan, Doon Scatoon,” his name in my phone has been Dunflower Scasunflower for like seven years. And I forgot about that and then I like posted a screenshot of a text that he was in and his brother saw it and was like, “why is that my brother's name in your phone?” And I was like, “I don't know.”
SARAH: Just for silly times.
DEAN: And don't you worry because Dunflower Scasunflower isn't even remotely the worst one, there were definitely worse ones.
KAYLA: And you know what's bad about it too? Is every time I go to text Dean, I type in ‘Dean’ and then I'm like, “where the fuck?” Like it's not… I don't even…
SARAH: See, I've had my sister in my phone as ‘Sister Moo’ for the entirety of the time that I have owned a phone.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And so sometimes if I'm looking her up on like Instagram, I will accidentally start typing ‘Sister Moo’ and I'm like, “that doesn't work.” Anyway, Stepdean has joined us.
KAYLA: Can we speak about Sister Moo for a second, actually, though?
SARAH: Yes. Okay, my sister said to me, she was like, “I feel like I maybe need to apologize for introducing the podcast to that horrifying poop story two episodes ago.”
KAYLA: Right. Which I've seen many… to the person who claims that that episode was their first impression and that they had to pull over on the side of the road and dry heave, but still gave us a 10 out of 10, I'm sorry and thank you.
SARAH: You’re God’s bravest soldier.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: So, then Kayla asked for a recording of an apology that we could play to the class and my sister said, “no.”
KAYLA: Yeah, she refused.
SARAH: She victim-blamed
KAYLA: She did
SARAH: She said, “in my defense, I did not ask you to put it on the pod. I just sent it to you to read,” to which I said… the thing was is that I told her at the time, she would like follow it up like hours later and was like, “Oh, did you read it?” And I was like, “no, I'm saving it for the pod.” And she didn't warn me at that point that maybe I shouldn't.
KAYLA: Maybe you shouldn't.
SARAH: So, she refuses to apologize on audio, but that's the best we've got for you.
KAYLA: And what does her wife think about this?
SARAH: That's a great question.
KAYLA: I think maybe we should bring the wife in at this point.
SARAH: What should… I'll text her right now and see if she answers. What should I say?
KAYLA: Well, does the wife know about what happened?
SARAH: I don't know. The wife!
KAYLA: The wife.
SARAH: I don't know, then I might have to explain the whole thing.
KAYLA: I know, then it's a whole thing.
SARAH: It's a whole thing.
DEAN: Just so we're clear, this story didn't happen to your sister?
SARAH: No, it’s horrifying.
KAYLA: This was a really horrifying… I don't even think I told Dean about this because I think you would retch. We read a really, really disgusting like Reddit story about a man with terrible hygiene. And it's like truly the worst thing I've ever heard in my life.
SARAH: He didn't wipe his ass for the first like 21 years of his life, and it's worse than you think. Like way worse.
KAYLA: Right.
DEAN: Oh, no, never mind.
KAYLA: You don't want it. You don't want it.
SARAH: You don't need that.
DEAN: Aren't you glad I'm hygienic?
KAYLA: Yes! And here's the thing, Dean, partway through I was like, “well, there's no way he fucks.” He did.
SARAH: He did.
KAYLA: How did he get away with it? We don't know.
DEAN: He has got to be like really good-looking, right? If he's going to get away with that.
KAYLA: That's actually a good point. I don't know that we ever talked about that maybe he's hot and has pretty-privilege.
SARAH: How hot he was, I don’t know.
DEAN: What is the hot to not wiping ass?
KAYLA: No, because reading what we read, Dean, you could be like…
SARAH: It was disgusting.
KAYLA: You couldn't… there's nothing you could do.
SARAH: The adjectives he used will haunt me.
KAYLA: Yeah. Gooey.
SARAH: Gooey.
KAYLA: Gooey, Dean.
DEAN: Nope, that's okay.
SARAH: Hi, this is Sarah from the future. I actually did manage to get a statement from my sister, which I will play for you now and then I will give a brief commentary afterwards. Thank you.
SARAH’S SISTER: Hello, listeners of Sounds Fake But Okay and your friends and allies, it is me, Sarah's sister. And there has been some backlash regarding the content of the Reddit episode. And it has come to my attention that a lot of the blame is being placed on me. And I would like to say, acknowledge, yes, I did send the poop story to my sister, but I would like to clarify that I did not send it to her with the intent of it being put on the podcast. Additionally, she's the one that made the choice to read it all the way through. She's the one that made the choice to leave it in the podcast, I would like to remind you at this time that Sarah is the one that edits the podcast. And at any moment she could have removed it. She could have said, “this is too much,” but instead she left it in and presented it to you all. So, I feel as though some of the blame is being pushed upon me unfairly. And I would just like you to know that I think Sarah and I can own this jointly. So, thank you for listening to my statement. Until then, take good care of your cows.
SARAH: I am willing to accept shared responsibility. However, I did find the receipts for this original conversation between me and my sister and I would like to read them to you now. She sent me the post, I made some comments about the post. A little while later, she said, “did you get to the redacted section?” I don't want to re-traumatize anyone, so I won't even mention what it is. And I said, “I have just read as far as I can see in the text preview, I'm now scared for my life.” She said, “oh boy, you got it. It's well-written.” And I said, “I'm saving it for pod.” And she said, “okay, I look forward to it.” If that's not tacit encouragement. Listen, she was the one who committed the sin of introducing it to me, I had to share it with the rest of you after that, it's content. Okay, anyway, thank you.
Anyway.
KAYLA: Anyway.
SARAH: Kayla, what are we talking about this week?
KAYLA: Well, this week we're talking about horror. And I know what you're saying, “Kayla, it's the middle of November, if you wanted to talk about horror movies, you should have done it in October or Halloween.”
SARAH: Y'all know that we don't prepare anything.
KAYLA: To that, I say we have not planned in years and I will not start now.
SARAH: No.
KAYLA: But the reason I thought of this is because Dean and I started rewatching Stranger Things in preparation for…
SARAH: Stranger Things
KAYLA: Stranger Things. Have you watched… I cannot remember if you are a Stranger Things guy.
SARAH: I watched I think seasons one and two.
KAYLA: Okay.
SARAH: Maybe some of three.
KAYLA: Okay.
SARAH: Three came out when we were in college, right?
KAYLA: One came out when we were sophomores.
DEAN: I think I was in my last year of college. So, you guys would have just graduated.
KAYLA: Oh, is that the one we watched in Connecticut? Yeah.
DEAN: In Connecticut, yeah.
SARAH: Okay. I may have watched the beginning of that when it first started coming out when I still lived in…
KAYLA: Oh, yeah, that would make sense. So, the final season, the first part comes out around Thanksgiving, the second part around Christmas or New Year's, I think. So, we started rewatching because I don't remember anything. And spoilers for season one if you haven't watched it in the last like eight years, but there is a part in season one where one of the main characters, Nancy, is having sex with Steve. And while they're having sex, her friend Barb gets taken and murdered.
SARAH: I forgot that that happened.
KAYLA: It's truly tragic, the loss of Barb.
SARAH: Well, no, we talked about the loss of Barb last week.
KAYLA: We did!
SARAH: I think it was on this podcast.
KAYLA: There was something about a Barb.
SARAH: Yeah. Continue.
KAYLA: Oh, because we named the anonymous person, you named them Barbie and I kept calling her Barb. And I was thinking like, we're like maybe halfway through rewatching season one. And I'm just remembering like, it's such a good show. And they do such a good job like playing on all these tropes of like horror and fantasy and all the stuff.
[00:10:00]
SARAH: Yes.
KAYLA: And I was like, it's interesting that they have like a character having sex and then not the character having sex be the one that dies because in horror movies there's this huge trope, and this is what we're talking about today, of when you're in a classic horror movie, you know, and you have like the final girl and you have whatever, the people who don't make it, who are murdered, are people that like have sex on screen during the movie.
SARAH: You mayn't fuck, if you fuck, you will get eaten by the beast.
KAYLA: Right. And I was like, well, that's… there's certainly something there.
SARAH: The beast is anti-fucking.
KAYLA: Right. But Sarah and I do not watch horror, except Sarah has seen Fox News.
SARAH: I have.
KAYLA: So, yeah, she does.
SARAH: I did tell Kayla that and she said, “oh, she's funny.”
KAYLA: She's funny. I did giggle. I giggled and I said it out loud and I said, “she's funny.” So that's why Dean is here because Dean watches horror. So, I felt like at least for a bit of the podcast, we should have someone who knows what they're talking about, perhaps.
DEAN: Yes. And as your designated horror expert, I would like to thank you for extending spooky season into mid-November.
KAYLA: I mean, you did kind of force me because you were like, “we are rewatching Stranger Things,” and I really have not had that much of a say in it.
DEAN: I don't pick the topics for this podcast.
KAYLA: I guess. Okay. Anyway.
SARAH: Wow. I feel like I'm just watching, I'm just here…
KAYLA: Yeah. Are you having a great time?
SARAH: I’m just here, just here I am.
KAYLA: Okay. When I was researching this, because I was like, certainly people on the internet are talking about this. Like people know this is a trope, we all know this.
SARAH: Sure. We all knew it before you mentioned it two hours ago.
KAYLA: You didn't know?
SARAH: It doesn't surprise me, but if you were like name a horror trope…
KAYLA: Okay, that’s fair
SARAH: I would have been like, “I don't know, the black person dies.”
KAYLA: Yeah. I mean, this is similar. I think of like this happens and so this person dies.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: When I was looking it up, it seems like a lot of people agreed that the Halloween movie, which is the Jamie Lee Curtis one with Jason?
SARAH: Deruloooooo
DEAN: Michael Myers.
KAYLA: So close, Michael Myers, is like the original horror movie that does this trope and there's a lot that people have to say about it that we can get into it. But Dean…
DEAN: Yes?
KAYLA: Explain Halloween to me.
DEAN: So, Halloween...
SARAH: And me, don't explain it to Kayla, only explain it to me.
KAYLA: Okay.
DEAN: Okay.
KAYLA: Don’t look at me.
DEAN: Sarah specifically.
SARAH: Yes.
DEAN: Halloween is a very important movie in terms of how horror movies kind of developed over the years.
KAYLA: It's like the OG…
SARAH: I was going to say, I feel like I'm in film school again, this is so exciting.
KAYLA: Yeah.
DEAN: Yeah. Let me just put my film bro hat on for a second.
KAYLA: Great. I love being engaged to a film bro.
DEAN: To the listeners, I apologize.
SARAH: Is your favorite director Quentin Tarantino?
KAYLA: Is it?
DEAN: No.
SARAH: I was like, “I didn't like that pause.” Continue.
DEAN: So, generally with horror movies, you kind of put them into different subgenres. And the one that really has the like classic sex scene type situations where you kind of get two characters isolated almost, the killer comes in, hacks them up with whatever, those are typically in the slasher genre.
KAYLA: That makes sense.
DEAN: Now, slasher movies are kind of what you define as your serial killer goes on the loose in a small town, starts killing this group of friends and they try to figure out who the killer is or why they're doing it, some of them are a mystery…
KAYLA: Kind of like an “It”?
DEAN: It kind of plays on that, but it's also a little bit of the supernatural part.
KAYLA: Yeah.
DEAN: I'm thinking more though like your Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, these types of movies.
SARAH: A person with a knife or some sort of sharp weapon.
KAYLA: A slasher, perhaps
DEAN: Yeah, usually they're not using guns because it's not quite as boring.
KAYLA: So, like not supernatural, this is like… it’s like a serial killer…
DEAN: Yeah, not paranormal, not supernatural, anything like that.
SARAH: Yeah.
DEAN: It's usually something that can kind of happen in real life, yeah.
SARAH: I feel like when you mentioned that it was slashers, that made a lot of sense in my brain because I feel like at some point I remember someone in film school telling me something about how slashers tend to be more sexualized than other types of horror films.
KAYLA: And I have thoughts on that later.
SARAH: I could be making that up, but it did come into my mind.
KAYLA: I have film school thoughts about that from a film person from the internet.
SARAH: From the internet!
KAYLA: So, hold that thought.
DEAN: Yeah. I think that's pretty much what I take away from it. Is the slasher movies, a lot of the time because they're starring either high school kids or young adults, and a lot of them came out in an age and they started when sex was incredibly glamorized and kind of this wild thing, but also this perfect thing that's only shown in movies.
KAYLA: Like ‘70s and ‘80s, kind of thing.
DEAN: Right. And in real life, it's like sex is much different than that. Obviously, for some people it's uncomfortable, for some people it's very glamorous and some people have a great time with it, but in movies it's you kind of only see the positive side of it, whereas…
SARAH: Is…
DEAN: Go ahead.
SARAH: In these movies, is it more often in the context of like, “oh no, we're scared, let's fuck about it” or is it like, we feel safe in this moment, so we're going to fuck, but we shouldn't have felt safe, we're about to get slashed to pieces?
DEAN: I think it's definitely the safety thing
SARAH: Okay
DEAN: Because if you go back to any, like they talk about like Psycho being the first kind of slasher movie in the 1950s and the famous scene in Psycho is the girl is in the shower, the killer comes in and starts stabbing her, you know?
SARAH: Is in the shower, yeah
DEAN: And they kind of… I think slasher movies kind of make their big scare sequences on situations where people are supposed to feel safe and sex being one of those things where people feel like they're safe, but also very vulnerable.
SARAH: Even in The Shining, like she's in the bathroom. Like even though she doesn't necessarily feel safe in the moment where like he's going… like they're going through the door, like it's, you know, it's…
DEAN: Yeah, or like a Paranormal Activity, you know, that's a different genre, but it freaked a ton of people out because it was happening in someone's bed.
SARAH: Yeah.
DEAN: Kayla doesn't like that.
KAYLA: This is why I don't watch these things. So, when I was looking up what people were saying about Halloween specifically, there's a lot of people with a lot of different thoughts about… well, so in Halloween he, like most of the people that die are people that have sex on screen, right?
DEAN: It has been a while since I've seen the first Halloween. What I will say though is basically every horror movie and definitely every slasher movie that came out after Halloween was influenced by Halloween in some facet.
KAYLA: Yeah
DEAN: And all these movies tended to have a bunch of sequels and every time a new sequel came out, they were more kind of dramatized cartoonish versions of the previous ones. So, it was like, what can we do that's even crazier and riskier and let's send Jason to space, that actually happened in the full feature film.
KAYLA: It has got a Fast and Furious vibe.
DEAN: Yeah. Literally, yes. And so, I think when you have a movie as influential as Halloween and it has sex scenes in it where people get killed and it's as effective as Halloween was, you know, you still watch Halloween today and it still holds up pretty well as a scary movie.
KAYLA: I don’t
SARAH: It becomes a hallmark of the genre.
DEAN: Yeah.
KAYLA: Yeah. So that's what I saw a lot of people saying online was that they felt like this became a trope because of Halloween. And I also saw apparently the directors of Halloween at one point came out and said, “we did not mean for this to become like a moral judgment of you have sex so you die because it's a bad thing.” They were like, “we meant more…” kind of like what Dean was saying of like, these are people that are distracted, they're not paying attention and so that's why they get killed. And it's, you know, them having sex as a convenient way to show that or whatever.
SARAH: It's easier to kill someone when they're distracted because they're getting down and dirty than if they are just sitting in their house waiting to be killed.
KAYLA: Exactly.
DEAN: And maybe that is what they intended for Halloween. But there's plenty of movies that have come after Halloween where it's, you have the very prototype hot guy, hot girl, both super dumb, both go off to have sex and are the first ones to get killed.
SARAH: They get their due for doing the do, if you will
KAYLA: Yeah.
DEAN: Right. Because they're always dumb and hot and they're always making out in every scene while, you know, and they're the first people that die or the guy dies and the girl screams and runs to the main character. And then you kind of juxtapose her. She's the one who's always screaming with and always scared, terrified, her boyfriend is the one who dies first. And you have the leading lady who is kind of this like more stoic, smarter kind of badass character that's not really in those situations.
SARAH: Mm-hmm
KAYLA: Yeah.
DEAN: So, whether or not they did it intentionally, like there are still those kind of undertones of smart girl, leading actress, not the dumb lady who has sex with all the guys.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: I would like to see a horror movie where there's a dumb, hot girl and then like this smart, stereotypical female main character, they fuck each other…
[00:20:00]
KAYLA: Perfect.
SARAH: And somehow them doing that allows them to conquer whoever is after them.
KAYLA: This, there is a Scooby-Doo fan fiction with that exact plot and I know it, and I know there is.
SARAH: Wow. What a pull from you, there is a Scooby-Doo fan fiction.
KAYLA: Am I wrong? Tell me I'm wrong.
SARAH: I don't know. I don't know it. But it's just wild that that was… it just came right to your mind unbidden.
KAYLA: I mean, because…
DEAN: Her sister was a witch
KAYLA: Her sister was a witch. Well, because you have Velma and Daphne and they're like, that's them. So, anyway.
DEAN: My favorite lesbians
KAYLA: My favorite lesbians. So yeah, I mean, even if they didn't mean for that to happen, it obviously became… and then you're going to have weird directors and weird fans who take it as a moral judgment of, well, sex bad or like, you know, slut girl
SARAH: Sex dirty, you punish for sin.
DEAN: And that is still a thing in modern horror movies, too, that wasn't just a ‘70s and ‘80s thing.
KAYLA: Yeah
DEAN: There was a Texas Chainsaw remake in the early 2010s, I think it was one of Alexandra Daddario's first movies, and that exact thing plays out like she plays the like smart girl who dresses like perfectly normal and is kind of running away from the killer and always outsmarting him and then her friend is the one who dresses up like more risque and is killed first.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: With a chainsaw.
KAYLA: And poor Barb, she wasn't having sex.
SARAH: No, she wasn't even fucking.
KAYLA: She died about it.
DEAN: I think I read somewhere that the actress that played Barb wanted to be killed off in Stranger Things so that she could go star in Riverdale. I don't know that that's a fact, but if it is, then she probably made a bad career decision.
KAYLA: Not a good one.
SARAH: I feel as though I have heard, I don't know specifically about Riverdale, but I feel like I have heard that maybe she did it, she did want to get killed off.
KAYLA: I mean, she just started a long Stranger Things tradition of like beloved character who is in one season and immediately gets killed off.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: You know? It's an important role that she played, she’s the blueprint.
DEAN: She is actually less in it than I remember.
KAYLA: Oh, she's barely in it.
DEAN: She's in it for like two episodes.
KAYLA: But people loved her.
SARAH: But people loved her, the people's princess. I can see your screens are changing.
KAYLA: I'm looking at the internet.
DEAN: I guess there's also kind of the idea that audiences are just going to be more sad if a hot person dies.
KAYLA: Damn!
DEAN: Like whether or not people want to admit it, like that's absolutely what a director is going for.
KAYLA: That’s sad
DEAN: There's a scene in one of the Scary Movies, which is like the parody series. In the first Scary Movie where the killer like chases down the girl and like stabs her in the boob and like pulls out her breast implant.
KAYLA: So, they do… in the Scary Movie franchise, do they have people fucking and dying? Do they make fun of that?
DEAN: Yes.
KAYLA: That’s nice
DEAN: To the point where it's like, it's a parody, so it's much more cartoonish, but yes
KAYLA: You guys remember the Twilight parody movie?
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: It was crazy
SARAH: I watched that without having seen Twilight.
KAYLA: Same
SARAH: So, it wasn't as funny as it should have been, you know, because I didn't get it.
DEAN: What is this movie called?
KAYLA: I forget what it was…
SARAH: I don’t know
KAYLA: But it like it had a full theatrical release. Like it was a like very obvious Twilight parody and it like fully went to the… like I went and saw it in theaters. Like, I don't know how they got… I don't know how they did that.
SARAH: Me and my high school best friend rented it on my TV.
KAYLA: Love.
DEAN: So, just to be clear, this parody movie is a parody of a book series that was based off of a fan fiction of My Chemical Romance, am I getting that correct?
SARAH: Well, it's a parody of a movie that's based on a book series
KAYLA: That's based on Fifty Shades, which is…
DEAN: No, Fifty Shades is a fan fiction of Twilight.
SARAH: Fifty Shades is based on Twilight.
KAYLA: Right, I see, we're reverse engineering.
DEAN: And Twilight was written about Gerard Way from My Chemical Romance.
SARAH: Yes, correct.
KAYLA: Yes.
SARAH: And My Chemical Romance happened because of 9/11.
KAYLA: 9/11, yes. It was called Vampires Suck, it came out in 2010.
DEAN: Is this like the Wikipedia thing, but it's like, how many clicks can you get from Vampires Suck to 9/11?
KAYLA: This is the Kevin Bacon. Yeah, Vampires Suck happened because of 9/11, yeah.
SARAH: Yeah, it's like that domino meme. Exactly.
KAYLA: Exactly.
SARAH: Exactly. I had a thing and then I forgot it. So, take that.
KAYLA: Do you want to hear my film thoughts?
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: So, when I was looking…
SARAH: I'll give you a grade.
KAYLA: Well, it's not my film thought, I'm just going to tell you about someone else's film thoughts.
SARAH: Yeah, I'll give them a grade.
KAYLA: Okay. Great. So, when I was looking this whole thing up, I came across a Reddit post and someone was saying that this subject to have sex, die in a horror movie has been researched and studied or not. They said Carol Clover, who is a UC Berkeley film professor…
SARAH: Oh, yeah, I know that name.
KAYLA: She wrote an essay and then also a book about this topic. They kind of said the TLDR of the essay, way condensing it down, is that her consensus was that the act of a gory murder on screen is very similar to pornography and the carnal and bodily nature of it make it go hand in hand with sex. And so, sex on screen leads to murder on screen, which they said way over simplification.
SARAH: Right.
KAYLA: But so that essay is called Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film and then her book on the topic is called Men, Women and Chainsaws.
SARAH: I think I've read that essay.
KAYLA: That essay? Have we talked about this? I'm getting afraid we've talked about this on the podcast.
SARAH: No, I don't think we have.
KAYLA: I'm getting really afraid.
SARAH: No, because when I was in college, I took a film class that was about like dystopian films and like zombie films.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: And there's a lot of overlap there and she talks about some of the same stuff. So, I do recall having… like, as soon as you said her name, I was like, “Oh, I know her.”
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: And I'm not going to give her a bad grade, she knows what she's doing.
KAYLA: That's why I was… you were like, “I'm going to give him a grade.” And I was like, “okay, it’s Carol.”
SARAH: Well, I didn't realize that you were like giving like a grade to like the actual academic person, I thought it was just some like random person online.
KAYLA: No, no, no. Well, it was some random person online sharing Carol's thoughts. But I mean, I think that's interesting. Like there is a visceral shock and horror to a slasher where it's gory and bloody and nasty.
SARAH: Mm-hmm
KAYLA: And like, as someone who I don't love, like watching pornographic sexual media, like I don't… it's too visceral for me. Like I cannot consume porn in that visual sense. I'm like, yeah, that makes sense to me. Like those are two things that for me are like too much to be looking at.
SARAH: Too much, yeah.
KAYLA: I feel like that makes sense.
DEAN: Well, and in the same way that, you know, there's a reason that the killer doesn't kick down the door and shoot the girl, he comes up and he stabs her and gets really up close and like, they're… there's a whole chase scene and everything too.
SARAH: Bloody, yeah.
DEAN: She's grabbing onto her leg and she's running away and it's kind of…
KAYLA: Can I say something nasty?
DEAN: Go ahead.
SARAH: Sure.
KAYLA: Do you think it's like the knife is the penis?
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Okay.
SARAH: Yeah. I think that's part of what our girl, Carol… what's her first name? Her last name is Carol.
KAYLA: Carol Clover, a sick name by the way
SARAH: Oh, the first name is Carol? Carol Clover. I think like, that is exactly what Carol Clover is saying
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: Is there's like a sexual nature of that kind of like intimate up close and personal bloody gory.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: It's a power thing and it plays into certainly some fantasies that some people have.
DEAN: And that's interesting too, because for a lot of the early genre of these slasher movies, it was not really like a personal feeling to these killings. Like it was some lunatic or it was, you know, Michael Myers who walks everywhere and doesn't talk, he wears a mask…
KAYLA: He wears a mask, yeah
DEAN: Very kind of… they're humans, but it's very dehumanizing. And I think as the genre has developed, you kind of see more of those personal slasher films are people kind of showing more satisfaction in killing people
KAYLA: Yeah
DEAN: As opposed to…
SARAH: A person with a specific vendetta rather than a person with a problem.
KAYLA: Who is killing to kill
SARAH: Yeah
DEAN: Right.
KAYLA: Well…
SARAH: No, but like with a… like, oh, I didn’t want to kill people, it's like, I want to kill specific people because they did X, Y, Z.
KAYLA: Yeah
DEAN: Right. But they also, they like to show the person enjoying the kill in that sense.
SARAH: Yeah. In almost like a sexual way. Like they're enjoying killing people in the same way that they might enjoy sex.
DEAN: Yeah.
SARAH: Yeah.
DEAN: I haven't seen… I could be totally wrong on this, but I haven't seen Jennifer's Body in a while, but I feel like that's kind of that similar vein where she's… maybe I'm totally off base here, but
SARAH: I haven't seen Jennifer's Body but there's a Panic At tThe Disco song on that soundtrack called New Perspective.
DEAN: New Perspective, yeah, it’s really good
SARAH: And it bangs so hard and I have a very specific memory of me and you Kayla, we're sitting in that like hallway by the elevator at Alice Lloyd, where we lived our freshman year and we were both… we had our laptops, we were like doing homework or whatever.
[00:30:00]
SARAH: And I was listening to music and I was listening to that song and I was like, absolutely like singing along. And there's a line that says, “can we fast forward till you go down on me?” And I was not paying attention and I just sung that line aloud and you were like, “what are you listening to?”
KAYLA: I do not remember, wait, which elevator? Like, the one on our floor or like the booths downstairs?
SARAH: The one on our floor, I don't know why we were there
KAYLA: Why were we sitting there? Why would we be there?
SARAH: I don't know why we were there. Because it's not somewhere we often were.
KAYLA: There's no reason for us to have been there when we have a perfectly good couch and bed
SARAH: That’s how I recall it
DEAN: You know what's funny? I forgot about that song for a lot of years and what brought it back into my life was sitting in the back of Sarah's car while she was playing it.
KAYLA: Wow.
SARAH: Hell, yeah. It's a banger.
KAYLA: Full circle.
SARAH: I did that for you, Dean.
DEAN: Thank you.
KAYLA: I’m trying to see if Carol Clover has anything else good to say. Oh, this is like a whole ass article, login through my library to read it type shit.
SARAH: Hold on, let me…
KAYLA: Which I could do, but…
SARAH: I recently came across an essay I had written for my like dystopian zombie class. And it was primarily about Mad Max Fury Road.
KAYLA: Wow
SARAH: I’m trying to remember what it was.
KAYLA: Apparently, her book, the Chainsaw one is from 1992, which is like pretty wild.
DEAN: Do you need me for anything else?
KAYLA: No, you can go to bed. Are you sleepy?
DEAN: I am. It is past my time at this point.
SARAH: You can go sleep.
KAYLA: Thank you for…
DEAN: Yes. Thank you. I hope I was very helpful.
KAYLA: You were so helpful. Thank you so much. Bye.
DEAN: Goodnight Sarah.
SARAH: Bye. Bye Dean. Have good sleeps, don't dream of slashers.
KAYLA: Imagine he like wakes up screaming.
SARAH: My essay was about women… women's… women…
KAYLA: Women, women, when, when you, when you, when you…
SARAH: When you… Anyway, this essay is called A Girl is a Gun: Women, Weapons and Weaponized Womanhood in 21st Century Apocalyptic Film.
KAYLA: Can I tell you that title really… the other day, because I'm writing a research paper for class right now.
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: And it made me miss, especially in my, well, I guess all my psych and my communications classes, it was a thing when you wrote like a research paper that you would give it a really funny first title and then you would do like the colon and then the real title.
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: And I was really reminiscing. I was like, that was probably some of my best creative writing was those titles, like I really got into that shit.
SARAH: Yeah. You want to know what my work cited for this essay is?
KAYLA: Just the movie Mad Max.
SARAH: 10 Cloverfield Lane, Children of Men, Mad Max Fury Road, and Zombie Land.
KAYLA: Nice.
SARAH: Anyway.
KAYLA: Anyway, everyone say, “thanks Dean.” He's gone, but wow.
SARAH: Thanks Dean.
KAYLA: What a nice man.
SARAH: Thanks Dean. Oh wow, I have another fun like first part of an essay and then the second part of it, you want to know what this one is?
KAYLA: I'm scared.
SARAH: It’s Someone Else's Apocalypse: Parallels and Allegory in Star Trek.
KAYLA: Oh, Star Trek. Yes! Yes, Star Trek.
SARAH: Wow. I don't remember any of this.
KAYLA: I kind of… I don't like horror at all, but I really want to read Carol Clover's stuff.
SARAH: It's good as I recall, yeah. Unfortunately, this essay I do refer to Susan Sontag, but I don't refer to Carol Clover.
KAYLA: Well, what's the point?
SARAH: I'm sorry. Wait, let me see, in my notes, Sontag... No, I don't see her in my notes. I could have read her for a different class as possible. It doesn't actually matter at all. Oh my God. Now I'm just looking at the shit that I did for my film classes in college, I had a presentation called Sex Wars: Luke Skywalker as an Asexual Icon.
KAYLA: I remember you working on that project, actually
SARAH: I don't
KAYLA: I remember that one.
SARAH: That's crazy, look at me go. Anyway, what do we have… where… what… you know?
KAYLA: I don't know. I don't know.
SARAH: Is that it?
KAYLA: I just feel like, I don't know, I feel like it makes sense to me thinking about early slasher films having this trope, of like, have sex, die. Like you're punished for being morally, you know, not good
SARAH: Because it's not like it's ever like a married couple having sex upon their marital bed for the purpose of procreation.
KAYLA: Yeah, it's always teenagers.
SARAH: It's like young people, yeah.
KAYLA: Yeah. And to me, just, you know, I'm like, okay, yeah, ‘70s, ‘80s, like they, you know, people were just doing shit
SARAH: They do be fucking
KAYLA: I find it interesting that according to Dean, at least this trope is still continuing because on one hand I'm like, “oh, we're way too woke for this now, why are we still doing that?” But on the other hand, we have reached a point of sexual freedom and expression in media that to take it away, I feel like would also be seen as bad. Do you know what I mean?
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Like it's almost like the feminist issue of like…
SARAH: It would almost be censorship to take it away.
KAYLA: Yeah. It's almost like the level of feminism that we've gotten to of like, is it more feminist to be freely sexual? You know what I mean?
SARAH: Right
KAYLA: To like be overly sexual or to like, yeah, I don't know, I feel like that doesn't make sense, but…
SARAH: No, I understand the vibe that we're going for here. And I closed all the things I opened, so I can't look at them now.
KAYLA: That's very brave of you.
SARAH: Thank you.
KAYLA: That's really brave.
SARAH: Because if there's one thing about me that I like doing, it's rereading my own writing.
KAYLA: And I love that for you because I won't be doing that.
SARAH: Well, will you reread my writing?
KAYLA: I would love to reread your writing.
SARAH: Too bad.
KAYLA: Oh.
SARAH: Anyway. Okay. So, are we… is that enough?
KAYLA: I just… I guess, I don't know. I guess I'm just curious where the genre goes from here. Like I feel like… I mean, again, do I watch horror? No. But to me, it seems like slasher films aren't really what's in anymore, it's more of the psychological kind of, I don't know, supernatural kind of things that seem to be… or like thriller kind of seems to be what is doing better. And so… I don't know, I'm just curious.
SARAH: I think also these days I think people are less interested in gore for gore's sake. It's not that they're not interested in gory things, but I think if it feels… oh, what's the fucking word? Oh, like too much. Like, also, this is maybe more of a prediction. Well, not to like make this about current events, but in the past two years, we have seen so many horrifying, gory real videos coming out of Gaza and like even other war zones, but like a lot of it is coming out of Gaza that people have gotten desensitized to it to an extent. And I think putting it on screen just for shock value, it just doesn't have the shock value that it once did, that it did in the ‘80s when it was like, oh shit, like this looks real, this looks legit in a way that it hadn't before in film.
KAYLA: Oh
SARAH: Kayla is gone.
KAYLA: She gone.
SARAH: She's having problems. So now it's just you and me guys. Let's have an inside joke that Kayla doesn't know about. The inside joke is this…
KAYLA: Brr
SARAH: Exactly. Doing a podcast all by yourself is so boring. Do I talk to myself constantly in my daily life? Yes. But is that interesting to other people? No, it's just me being unhinged. When will Kayla return from war? Did she die? No, if she died, she would still be on the Zoom or her Zoom would still be on, just she would be dead. I'm going to stop recording now, I feel like she won't be back soon.
When I say bucket, you say sauce, bucket
KAYLA: Sauce
SARAH: Bucket
KAYLA: Sauce
SARAH: Great. I was like, oh, it seems like it's going to take her a while to come back. Like, I'll stop it so I don't have to wade through a bunch of empty airwaves and then of course immediately you came back.
KAYLA: I’m sorry. My internet did the thing, do you ever have a thing where you put in the password then it tells you like, “mm, nope?” It's just like, “LOL, no.” So, I'm connected to my phone hotspot now, so that's cool.
SARAH: Cool. Well, I said something and I don't remember what it was and the train of thought is now in like Amsterdam.
[00:40:00]
KAYLA: Oh, I remember what it was, it was that we've seen so many terrible real gory images...
SARAH: Yeah, that like it doesn't have the shock value anymore.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Yeah. It just, it doesn't. And also, people don't want to see it.
KAYLA: Yeah. I'd also like to think that audiences are just more… I would like to think the audiences are more intelligent now and like want… go with me, that they want like some sort of like payoff or understanding, like I'm thinking of, I saw Sinners, which was huge for me because it was scary and I was very brave. And there was… now that I'm thinking about it, like, there was sex in that movie and there was…
SARAH: Well, because they're sinners
KAYLA: Because they're sinners. But there was like an interesting moment where there was characters who were like in a relationship or whatever and they went to have sex, it's like a vampire movie, so like it was this very close, intimate moment and then it turned into like nasty vampire stuff, but it was made interesting by the fact that they were physically very close because of that.
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: And to me it was like, okay, payoff like this makes sense why there's this like a sexual moment happening and it turns into this thing to me. To me, I was like, “okay, good writing.” It's not like just sex for whatever.
SARAH: Right. And there's definitely a sexual element to vampirism as well.
KAYLA: Sure
SARAH: So, like that's built in. I think it's so brave of you to say that you like to think that audiences are smarter because here's something that has been… I have heard happening, of studios and execs making writers dumb-down their scripts
KAYLA: I know
SARAH: Because they know that everyone is watching with a second screen.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: That is they're watching something on TV and they're scrolling their phone at the same time. So, they have to be like really obvious about like, “here's a plot point, don't forget it,” because people are only half paying attention.
KAYLA: Well…
SARAH: It's making TV worse.
KAYLA: I'd like to think I'm an intelligent audience.
SARAH: Kayla is the only intelligent audience in all of television.
KAYLA: It seems that way.
SARAH: Good for you.
KAYLA: I don't even really like watching TV these days.
SARAH: Listen, it's a mess, it's a mess out here. Okay, anything else? If you find yourself in a horror movie, don't fuck
KAYLA: Don’t fuck
SARAH: Don't run away on your own.
KAYLA: Mm-hmm
SARAH: If there's something inherent to you that would make you more likely to die, like for example, your race, I'm very sorry, I don't know what to tell you to do about that.
KAYLA: Just try to get out of there.
SARAH: Yeah, get the fuck out of there. If you are getting bad, weird, Get Out vibes, get out
KAYLA: Get out.
SARAH: And if you're in a situation where you're like, “Oh no, some people keep getting killed. People keep getting slashed to death. But this isn't, I'm not in a horror movie.”
KAYLA: You are
SARAH: Then your death is imminent.
KAYLA: Mm-hmm
SARAH: Your death is imminent.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Good luck.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Kayla?
KAYLA: Yes.
SARAH: What's our poll for this spooky, spooky week?
KAYLA: Ooh, so spooky, Mid November, I don't know, I'm interested to hear…
SARAH: Nothing could be more spooky than fucking Daylight Savings, it is dark at 4:00 pm
KAYLA: And it is spooky. Let me tell you, when I leave the office and it's already pitch black, it's horrifying.
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: It gets dark while I'm sitting in my cubicle.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: What's the point? I would just love to hear from people who actually watch horror, their thoughts. Like aspecs who like horror, I would like to know how we are feeling about this trope and these vibes.
SARAH: If you were in a horror film, am I in an advantage because I'm aro-ace and I don't be fucking? You know? Does that put me at an advantage?
KAYLA: I mean, it does seem that way.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Like, do you feel like you’re a final girl material? I'm not.
SARAH: I don't know about that.
KAYLA: I am not.
SARAH: Like, have you ever thought about like, okay, if you were in the Hunger Games, how long would you last?
KAYLA: Not long.
SARAH: I fear you would be gone in the bloodbath.
KAYLA: I fear that as well, I would like trip and die. It wouldn't even be… like, I would just like run and trip and someone would shoot me.
SARAH: I feel like if you had asked me a couple of years ago, I would have been like, “I could make like maybe the top eight and then I would die.”
KAYLA: You're too itchy.
SARAH: But now I'm like, “hmm.”
KAYLA: Your hives would overtake you before anything else.
SARAH: I would die of hives.
KAYLA: And you're so picky, what would you eat? You would die of starvation.
SARAH: Well, in that situation, I feel like it's severe enough that I could override my brain.
KAYLA: You think? Mm, I don't know.
SARAH: I mean, people eat like maggots when they're starving.
KAYLA: People eat people when they're starving.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: So
SARAH: Anyway, I don't think I'm final girl material…
KAYLA: No, me either.
SARAH: But I think I would last longer than you.
KAYLA: Probably.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: I think I would just be so fearful, I think I'd be too scared to do anything.
SARAH: I feel like the thing that would probably ultimately kill me would be indecision.
KAYLA: Yes, I think that's true.
SARAH: Like I would be in a situation where I would have to make a snap decision and I wouldn't be able to.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And it would fuck me.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: So, there's that.
KAYLA: I also just can't run. So, what am I supposed to do? I can't run.
SARAH: I can run short distances.
KAYLA: I can't see well in the dark at all.
SARAH: Oh no.
KAYLA: So that's not going to help
SARAH: Well, I do have blue eyes, so I have an advantage to you over that, but my eyesight is also worse than yours.
KAYLA: But I have the astigmatism, so it makes night very difficult.
SARAH: I think my doctor at one point was like, “mm, you have beginning stages of astigmatism.”
KAYLA: The beginning of astigmatism.
SARAH: He was like, “you have a little bit of it, but not enough to give you astigmatism contacts,” you know?
KAYLA: Interesting.
SARAH: Anyway. I've learned a lot about blue eyes recently and why I need sunglasses all the time.
KAYLA: Yeah, you have sensitive little baby eyes.
SARAH: Even if it's overcast, sometimes I'm like, “I have... or I will die.” Anyway, sunglasses are important and so is sunscreen. Kayla, what's your beef and your juice for this week?
KAYLA: My beef is that, remember how I've been talking about how there's something I'm waiting for?
SARAH: Mm-hmm
KAYLA: I was told that my waiting would be over within a certain timeframe, even though it had been supposed to be over in a certain timeframe already, and then that timeframe did pass and nothing did happen.
SARAH: I mean, at this point, they're probably just putting it off until the very end of the year.
KAYLA: I mean, I don't know, I truly don't know.
SARAH: If it doesn't happen before the end of the year, I think you have a right to sue.
KAYLA: I mean, I've spoken to the people…
SARAH: Well, now you're getting a little too specific.
KAYLA: Do you think? Bleep it out. Just bleep that out. Anyway, that's my beef. My juice… oh, also beef, someone said I said ‘caramel’ wrong. I don't remember how I said it when I was talking about caramel apples last time, I assume I was saying camel instead of caramel, but…
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: Sorry
SARAH: We're Midwesterners, fuck off.
KAYLA: So, what do you know about it?
SARAH: It's two syllables.
KAYLA: My juice is that this shirt I'm wearing, I ordered it forever ago because it was from a small business. What do you know about it?
SARAH: Oh, yeah
KAYLA: And it's like a waffle texture shirt. They called it a thermal, I don't know if I'd ever heard these shirts called thermal before. But waffle shirts are a big deal in this household and so I got me one and Dean got one and they finally came today and it's good.
SARAH: I'm sweating so bad in my sweatshirt, I regret putting on a sweatshirt.
KAYLA: I'm actually also really warm, this thing is thermal. I'll tell you what, this thing is locking the heat in.
SARAH: As soon as this is over, I'm going to open my windows because guess what?
KAYLA: Because she can.
SARAH: It's cool enough for me to open my windows.
KAYLA: It is 39 degrees here.
SARAH: It's 64 here, the air quality is fine. The other day I wanted to open the window at night, but then I checked the weather to make sure it was cool enough. And it was like, “the air quality is bad.” And I was like, “okay, well fuck you.”
KAYLA: Good.
SARAH: Anyway. My beef is all of it. My house needs to be cleaned. My house has been needed to be cleaned forever. I realized that since my mom… my mom is coming back with me after Thanksgiving because she's coming to a K-pop concert, naturally, which means that my house has to be prepared for my mom before I leave for Thanksgiving.
KAYLA: That’s tough. That is tough.
SARAH: I don't think this will happen, to be quite frank.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: Listen, I'm going to go home and I'm going to help my parents clean their house for Thanksgiving. And then my mom will come back here and then she can help me clean my house.
KAYLA: And that's only fair, I think.
SARAH: It's only fair. I also bought a shelving unit that if I do not get myself to put it together before my mom arrives, I will be making my mom do it.
KAYLA: Perfect.
[00:50:00]
SARAH: She likes to put things together. She likes to put like IKEA stuff together.
KAYLA: Great, a gift.
SARAH: And I, it makes me want to wander off a cliff into the void.
KAYLA: That's fair.
SARAH: My juice is I have a cat. I have an alive thing in my house and she's so soft.
KAYLA: Mm-hmm
SARAH: She causes me problems, but she's very soft.
KAYLA: That's good.
SARAH: What more can we ask for in life?
KAYLA: What more is there in life than a soft, alive thing in our house?
SARAH: Exactly. Well, when you say it like that, then it could be like mold.
KAYLA: You literally said it, you said it like that, you.
SARAH: You can tell us about your beef, your juice, and your thoughts on the horror films and fucking in horror films on our social media. Honestly, I'm surprised that the sex in horror films isn't kinkier, but I guess they still need it to be appealing to a broader audience and murdering with knives is seen as more acceptable to a broad audience than like certain types of kinky sex.
KAYLA: Well, I think, too, if you… like, kinky sex turned violent is just like… getting a little close to like torture at that point…
SARAH: It's a slippery slope
KAYLA: If you're like really, you know? Like, it's a little much, I think
SARAH: Right, that's fair. Because, you know, the whole thing with kink is that it's consensual for everyone and if it's not…
KAYLA: Then it’s really scary.
SARAH: Yeah. You can tell us about things on our social media @soundsfakepod. We also have Patreon, patreon.com/soundsfakepod if you'd like to support us there. We have a new $2 patron, it is Melody Nix, I feel like this is the name I've seen 55 times
KAYLA: I agree
SARAH: I don't know if you've just changed your patronage or maybe you were a patron and then you had to delete and now you're back, I don't know, but we appreciate you no matter what.
KAYLA: Yay!
SARAH: So, take that. Our $5 patrons who we're promoting this week are Alexander, Alma, Alucard Zavertnik, which sounds, and I mean this in a complimentary way, sounds like the name of a vampire.
KAYLA: Say it again.
SARAH: Alucard Zavertnik
KAYLA: Yeah, that's a good name.
SARAH: Like that is a bomb ass vampire, that is a cool motherfucker, you know?
KAYLA: Uh-huh
SARAH: Amanda Kyker and Ashley W. Our $10 patrons who are promoting something this week are Purple Hayes, who would like to promote the musician Vinther, Quartertone who would like to promote World Central Kitchen & Doctors Without Borders, Barefoot Backpacker who would like to promote their YouTube channel, rtwbarefoot, SongOStorm who would like to promote a healthy work-life balance and Val who would like to promote leaving work before it's dark outside. Our other $10 patrons are Alastor, Ani, Arcnes, Benjamin Ybarra, Clare Olsen, Danielle Hutchinson, Derick & Carissa, Elle Bitter, Eric, my aunt Jeannie, Johanna, Kayla's dad, KELLER bradley, Maff, and Martin Chiesl. Our $15 patrons are Ace who would like to promote the writer Crystal Scherer, Nathaniel White, who would like to promote NathanielJWhiteDesigns.com, Kayla's aunt Nina who would like to promote katemaggartart.com and Schnell who would like to promote accepting that everyone is different and that's awesome. Our $20 patrons are Changeling & Alex who would like to promote their company Control Alt Access (dot com), and Dr. Jacki, Dragonfly, my mom and River who would like to promote, I just, I think fanfiction is cool.
KAYLA: Especially when it's Scooby-Doo
SARAH: Scooby-Doo
KAYLA: Scooby-Doo
SARAH: I just think there are so many fun things you can do with fanfiction and it is underappreciated as a medium. Thanks for listening…
KAYLA: Would you maybe write the Scooby-Doo one I was talking about, please?
SARAH: So, you're saying it doesn't exist?
KAYLA: I haven't checked, but I think even if it does exist, Ms. Costello, you could do it better.
SARAH: I don't know Scooby-Doo.
KAYLA: Me either.
SARAH: I don't feel comfortable writing in the Scooby-Doo fandom.
KAYLA: Okay. Could you maybe find someone and make a request?
SARAH: But then I would have to become familiar with the Scooby-Doo fandom.
KAYLA: Okay, if anyone here is listening that is in the Scooby-Doo sphere, if you could please handle that, that'd be great.
SARAH: What was it again?
KAYLA: It was, I think Velma and Daphne fuck and that is what fixes it.
SARAH: Whether it's supernatural and the supernatural thing that they're able to create from their fucking would be able to be the monster?
KAYLA: Right. I think it's probably some sort of like ritual where like the power of their sex lights up like some sort of…
SARAH: Yeah. The power of sapphic sex.
KAYLA: Right. So, if someone could get on that, that'd be great. Thank you.
SARAH: Yeah. Please. Thanks. We'd like to read. Thanks for listening…
KAYLA: I wouldn’t
SARAH: Tune in next Sunday for more of us in your ears
KAYLA: And until then, take good care of your cows.
[END OF TRANSCRIPT]