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hey if any of you guys feel sad that you missed the glory days of forum hangouts come catch the magic this weekend. it wont be exactly the same because we wont just be talking about HH but you can make me talk mostly about HH if you want

little esther, BIG laughs

I went to see the MEG. CRAZY RICH ASIANS was showing in the theater next door and I could tell who was going to which movie just by looking at them (there was one couple I wasn't sure about buy they turned out to be stragglers for MISSION IMPOSSIBLE).

Yes, exactly. I specified that it could be some fantastical (not necessarily supernatural) element that creates the horror. A shark as large and bloodthirsty as the one in Jaws qualifies, to my mind. Maybe human killers are an exception, though again horror movies tend to involve some kind of heightened, extreme version of one. When you remove the fantasy elements it tends to become more of a thriller or police procedural (like Zodiac).

You're probably right. I haven't seen this since theatres. So, a lot of nuance or horror elements are probably lost on my memory. If someone wants to call this horror, I'm not going to push hard on it. It's one of those where it walks that line between two genres and I felt it fel more on drama than horror. I have to disagree with this. I don't think horror needs to be scary due to supernatural horror. The Strangers, Them (the French movie, not the mutant ant movie), Jaws, many slasher movies, etc. don't have supernatural elements and are all horror movies to me.

On this movie. I think it's very good and well-made. At the time I thought Shyamalan was a filmmaker with a lot of promise and I was excited to see what he'd do next. He spent a good amount of time squandering that promise, but that doesn't necessarily speak ill of this effort. I don't think it's a Top 100 movie of all time. I can think of many better movies in the "horror" or "supernatural" genre (The Exorcist definitely deserves a spot if this does). Once you know the twist, I think the movie is still good but it loses something -- the thematic content (IMO) isn't quite robust enough to elevate it to the level of greatness. I don't see where it's saying something profound about art or movies or the human condition. It's just a neat story, well-filmed. Worth praising, but a pretty common thing in the long history of cinema.

Yeah, that's an interesting point. Sometimes a horror movie inverts it and makes the protagonist the monster. Sixth Sense doesn't really do that either, but you've mentioned some good examples here.

Ohhh Let The Right One In and A Girl Walks Home are awesome!! If those, and The Sixth Sense, are horror -- I guess maybe I am a horror fan. I tend to think of horror as the bloody murderer disgusting stuff. Like, there's a difference to me between "Scary" and "Horror." But maybe there isn't?

That's a really interesting qualifier that I hadn't considered before but in more recent years there have been some films within the horror genre that have come out where our protagonist is actually the one doing the most damage/the "monster." The three examples I can think of are Raw (French) and A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (Iranian) and Let the Right One In (Swedish). I would probably say that the middle could be considered not a horror film but IMDB still has that as one of it's two genres. I wonder if this is like a European thing where the monsters of our nightmares get stories where they end up being the ones we cheer for in the end? ETA: OH! And The Others! That's probably a horror movie that can be directly compared to Sixth Sense due to its similar twist ending. I also loved that movie lmao.

(Looks at podcast page) Huh, we’re already up to #195. Hopefully it’s not too late to plan something for #200. The live shows are done so far in advance that the hosts always have to ask when the episode they just did is airing when deciding what to plug. Since the hosts schedules are so busy, then the obvious go-tos would be the relatively easy things: A movie the fans have wanted for a long time, and a good guest. I say they should do Manos: The Hands of Fate and have on someone from MST3K, preferably Patton Oswalt. If it is too late to do something, then there’s always the 250th episode, a quarter of 1,000, in about two years.

It has some scary scenes of hauntings, but yeah probably not strictly a "horror" movie. This reminds me of Guillermo Del Toro's description of Crimson Peak, which is that it wasn't a horror movie, it was a gothic romance with a ghost in it. I feel similarly about The Sixth Sense: it's a mystery and character drama with ghosts in it.

I definitely agree that the randomness is convenient. But I would also argue that a lot of the times we are following Bruce Willis or seeing things through his perspective. Usually we only see Haley's perspective when he sees other ghosts. In that sense I would say that if Bruce's idea of things is that he is very much alive then the audiences would be too. Like if he thinks he is changing his clothes then we think he is changing his clothes, and he had his wedding ring on the whole time until the very end when his wife drops it and he looks down to see it's no longer on his finger. I think that a lot of the work to convince the audience that he isn't dead is simply because we follow him around and he has no idea himself.

Hmm that's really interesting, and not one I'd considered. But, no, I don't believe in ghosts, so that could be why I want and look for those 'rules'. Regardless, I still think some consistency there would help from a storytelling point-of-view. There may be different ghost rules across different ghost stories, but within one ghost story, I think it needs to follow some ghost logic.

I have to add, as a wild ghost enthusiast, that the inconsistencies is actually really appropriate and most life like. Not every apparition will have the same amount of energy and will be able to communicate the same, even to someone that is considered a medium. Apparitions can make themselves known by temperature change, voice, moving objects, shadow people, or even full bodied apparitions. Now this all comes down to whether or not you really believe in this, but let's argue that you do because I know I do and once I could swear I smelled my grandmother's perfume as I walked down the hallway of a house she had never been to before she died. A friend of mine has always claimed that she is more sensitive to these things and has seen multiple full bodied apparitions, and sometimes just feels the presence rather than sees it. Once she told me she felt someone sit on her bed and lie down next to her but when she looked there was no one there. So in my opinion Cole's difference in who can communicate with him and how is rather life like based on other's irl that claim to see things themselves. Basically I think that there aren't any established rules in the movie because there aren't any in real life either.

I was in the middle of writing something but I stopped just so I can say how much I agree with your 4th point. This is not a horror film in my books. Like Paul was talking about dramas having moments of levity, we sort of exist is this world where some people don't like mixing of elements or tones which is silly. You can use whatever tools you want to tell the story the best it can be told. Does Hamlet become horror because there is a ghost? There are witches in Macbeth while we are at it. Clearly that's horror. This is a character drama. Yes there are ghosts in it, yes some of the moment may give you the chills, but at the end of the day this movie was not made to scare you. It may have some moments and elements but it is trying to tell a character based drama.

also some more random thoughts: 1. I vividly remember seeing this movie in 1999 and how great it was in the theater with a full crowd. Seeing it again was certainly a very different experience, but I still dug it... though I think knowing the twist also made the 'flaws' in the story more visible. They mentioned on the pod the inconsistency of the temperature dropping, and I think that's a good example -- but even just the basic visibility of ghosts, or their anger, or who communicates and how, seems inconsistent to me. It all just happens at the convenience of the story, and not due to any established 'rules.' Maybe I just haven't pieced it all together, but this could and should have been tightened up, I think. 2. I love the way the movie builds up to Cole conquering his fear and being able to help these ghosts out. In that way, it's a super hero origin story, right? He has power now! I want to see him use it more. I'd say the two best scenes are when he helps the sick girl and with his Mom in the car. We need more of those! Especially after seeing the hell Cole went through in the first half, these scenes are SOOO satisifying and awesome. 3. Rob Zabrecky! he played bass on a song or two on Beck's Mellow Gold album (his cool band Possum Dixon was from the same early 90s LA scene). It was cool to hear him here. 4. Maybe the definition of 'horror' has changed, but I really don't think of this as a horror film.

Little Esther’s daddy is such a boss. Dude just wants to be involved in his daughters life even though he doesn’t hang out with dads anymore. And that’s cool because now he can just talk about his daughter with buddies without them talking about kids that’s aren’t dating the founders of Wendy’s. Ya done good big Esther.

God that woman brings up bad childhood memories of some of the moms I dealt with when I went to a Christian private school from 2nd-6th grade. As for the horns I remember Dio gave an interview where he credited his grandmother with the symbol, which she would use in a "mind your manners because I'm watching you" kind of way. In regards to other hand gestures, I'm sure Smigg is aware of the Too Sweet controversy in regards to a hand signal used by a variety of wrestling factions including the NWO, Degeneration-X, and the Bullet Club, only for the latter to be given a cease and desist order from the WWE who apparently trademarked the gesture, but that has come under questions as there are numerous colleges that use the signal and the original wrestler who used it, Kevin Nash, said he started so after he saw Turkish gangsters using it during one of the WWE tours in Europe in the 90s and thought it looked cool. In other words, people are weird when it comes to hand signals.

"Little" Esther is actually a "big" deal in my opinion. I think it's time she change her name to Big Esther because she's a corker

The weirdest scene in this movie is where Giselle puts a fish in her mouth and spits it out in front of the assistant. WHAT IS THAT? I know she's cute and quirky, but even cartoon Giselle wouldn't put her fish friends in her mouth especially since they talk in her world.

The sentence should have been “I certainly don’t think Dalton wouldn’t have written a great description of the best podcast ever.” Kind of a double negative there. Eat dirt dirteaters.