 Do you have something? Nope. What makes you think I would have something? What do you have? I don't have anything. Okay. Our stupid reaction is a Corbin. I've got nothing. And you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter. Ta-da! Tooth God Dance. Do you think? Do you think? Do you think? Smell it. Smell it! Okay, we gotta move your view. Welcome back. Welcome back. To the dream. Wait. To the... Welcome back. Welcome back. Your dreams were your ticket out. Welcome back. Welcome back. To that same old place that you left about. Great show. Welcome back, Carter. For those of you who don't know, look it up. Watch it. Put it up your nose with the rubber hoe. That's... That's good. Vinnie Barbarino. Sorry. It's nothing to do with... John Travolta's claim to fame. All of that is essentially comparable. It's basically a remake. It is a remake. This is just basically welcome back, Carter. Turned into a motion picture. Good bye, everybody. We... It's Halloween Horror Month. So, we watched a... Assamese film. First, I forget the name of it, but you can watch our review of that. And now we watch La Pachapi, right? Sounds good to me. La Pachapi? La Pachapi. A drama horror mystery, Marathi film. And I think the synopsis gives away a little too much. Okay, so let me see if I can read it out loud. Yeah. I like that. That's almost a twist. It is. It's almost a twist at the end. It should be a bit more vague. Yeah, so anyways. But it's basically a pregnant lady goes into a village because her husband's getting beat up by somebody. By goons. And a bunch of scary stuff happens. Stuff happens. That's essentially what you need to know. Yeah. If you haven't watched it, please go watch it. Come back. We saw it. Where did we see it? Where did we watch it? Z. Z. Yeah. We saw it on Z5 here. But it's directed by Vishal Furia, who was also the contributing writer to the story. Yes. And then it's starring. Where's Pooja? Is this her? There she is. No, down at the bottom. Oh, okay. Why is she at the bottom? That's weird. She's the star. That's weird. Pooja. Very strange. Say the last name for me. Pooja Sawant. Why is it? Yeah, it's weird. It's alphabetical, I guess. It's alphabetical. Which is stupid. They should be doing it by either the role or star meter. Anyway. Yeah. Weird. Anyways. But yes, it's starring her. And then it's Usa Naik. Small cast. And then Anil Gawas. And then a couple of, I can't tell who. Small supporting roles. Because it's just his actor. Actress in the name. And there's not even a picture. Yep. But anyways, it's basically a Marathi horrorish. I'd hesitate to even say horror. But I guess it's on the mystery horror, you think? I put it in horror. Okay. Especially for Indian cinema. Yeah. Your initial thoughts, please. Well, the cool thing is, right before watching this, I finally figured out my rating system. Oh, yeah. And it comes to a grade that I can give a film. Like if I was grading my class of theater students, I could basically, I figured it out. What I've comprised my rating system on are categories of, and this might bore you a bit less, but they are starting with, first of all. How much you hate rating? How much, well, yeah, that and none of you. If you don't know what that is, you don't follow us on Instagram and Twitter. But five primary categories with some extras and then those categories include things. So it's story is number one. Makes up 25% of the grade as does believability. And we've said this before. If it strains credulity, then believability isn't a factor. It's just entertainment value. Yeah. Then acting and directing and cinematography. I put them together because they're so hand in glove. The score and then some extras with a lot of films that you can throw in because they're not always predominant is visual effects and stunts. Yeah. And then if a film has a level of importance, I throw in some extra points. And I went through the list of my favorite films and films we reviewed and I went, this works. Worked out pretty well. Yeah. Works out pretty well. On a grading scale of A, B, C, D, E, F being fail. It's an awful film. And basically what it means is this. If it's an A plus over 100 points because that can't happen. It's going to be one of my favorite films of all time. Yeah. If it's at least an A, I liked it and I want everybody else to watch it. Yeah. If it's a B, I liked it. Probably won't see it again. Yeah. If it's a C, meh. Yeah. If it's a D, I didn't like it and you probably won't either. If it's an F, run and hide. Don't watch it. So this movie for me gets an A. Okay. I liked it and I would encourage other people to watch it. What takes it from being like a B plus into the A is because at the very end of it, you have to throw in some points for importance. Yeah, absolutely. Got to. But I was. It's the thing we were talking about. It almost gives it away in the synopsis. Yeah. It doesn't really. We'll have a spoiler section in a second. It doesn't really, but I still don't like that it says anything about it. It shouldn't say that. I felt that it had, for me, of the films that we've seen that are scary, it's the scariest for me. It had the best jump scares. Yeah, definitely. I felt like it had a compelling story. In fact, I felt it was so compelling at points I was like, dang, I'd love to make this film and set it in the Louisiana bayou. Oh yeah, that'd be good. That would be freaking cool. They definitely put a lot of Indian culture in it and sort of think obviously the huge message. Yeah, we'll get to that. The end, which I thought was coming. I enjoyed it. It's not a perfect film. Not at all. There's flaws that it had, of course. Of course. But definitely an entertaining film. Yeah. And one that keeps you invested. Yeah. For sure. For hearing so much about, you know, India doesn't have a lot of horror genres. I mean, I've been impressed so far this and the last one that we saw. It was a lot more horror than that one. That one was more fantasy. Yeah. This would... This is still a fantasy. Little kids would freak. Yeah. This is not for little kids. Absolutely. Don't watch this for little kids. But the downsides would be, obviously, I'm betting they were strapped for cash a lot of times. And so... You know what I found out? What? They not only had an incredibly low budget, they shot this bad boy in 16 days. Well, that's not surprising. Obviously, it was all one location. It's all inherent right there. Which is great. But yes, it was extremely low budget. Yeah. And so I bet the actors were probably the most expensive part of it. And even some probably not. But yeah, since you could tell, so that obviously affects the... Some of the visual effects. Even though I thought some of them were pretty darn good. For a low budget film, I was impressed. Like the whole props. Yeah. I really enjoyed that part. I did too. But you could tell that obviously they did not have war money at all. Yeah. And from what they probably had to shoot it with. And that also affects stunts. Right. So anytime somebody like hits somebody over the head. You've got your own actors. It doesn't do in their own stunt work. Didn't look great. Right. That part. And so anytime... I didn't give it any points for stunts. Yeah. So anytime you see some action stuff like that, it's usually because you don't have a lot of money to pull off what you need to. It cost money. To one, make stuff look good and do effects. And to make stuff look good and stunt work. It stunt work. It cost money. And that's one of the things people don't realize. It costs a lot of money. But I will say one of the things I was so pleased with right off the bat when they... Okay, spoiler time. We're going to start talking about spoilers. Go watch it. Go watch it. Come back. Good Halloween movie. Really good Halloween movie. Yeah. It's when... Anyway, so when they were in the car at the very beginning and they're driving and he's been beaten up. Yeah. I noticed how good the makeup was on his face. Yeah. They put that nice glossy sheen that happens on a fresh wound. And then I was paying attention to it. The minutia detail of continuity. I got really high points for continuity for me because his makeup was not only maintained but he lost that glossiness as the time went on. Yeah. Also the smearing of her bindi and mark on her head, they never blew the continuity on that. Yeah. They maintained that as they went forward. So really whoever was in charge of continuity, whoever was in charge of this collaborative effort with the score, I thought the score was great. Real nice, really. Chi marks for the score. It added some of the suspense to a lot of the scenes. I love the jump scares. Yeah. And the score obviously helps with the jump scare. And I found the acting for the most part, you know, there wasn't anything where I just would say, man, you got to watch this because this is a powerhouse of the performance. Yeah. But I felt like Pooja... She did great. Did great. Great screen presence. I thought the grandma did... I don't know if she was a grandma but I thought she did really well. Yes. Her first monologue. Yeah. She's starting to tell her story and she gets a little bit emotional and her stillness, she was really good. Yeah. I can't tell because it just... I know who those two are. I remember I knew Pooja because I was looking her up. This isn't her, right? Sorry that we're... That's her, right? I think that was her name, right? That's her. Yes. Usha Naik and forgive me if I'm mispronouncing that name. Usha Naik. That name. She did really well. I just think she's been around for some time. She comes across as someone who... This isn't her first rodeo, that's for sure. Yeah. She definitely carries herself as somebody with experience. We've probably seen her like 10 times. Probably. That's an average. And even the little kids did a good job. They did. It reminded me it wasn't it. But at first when it started I thought, are we going to do an adaptation of Children of the Corn here? That was my wife's first thing. Yeah. Children and tall stuff that looked like corn. Is this the Indian version of Children of the Corn? I think it was actually sugar cane. I believe. But it wasn't anything... It isn't. No. At all like Children of the Corn. And then I thought it was going to be something to get out for a while. Because I was like, is she putting her in like a sunken place? Right. With a silent person. I thought that or I also thought everybody here is dead. Except the husband and wife. Many of these people are alive. So let's talk about the story. Because I think the story will get to the end part of the story in a second. But I thought they did a really good job of keeping the mystery going. Me too. In terms of... Because I... Me and my wife do that all the time. I try to figure out. Right. My brain naturally does that. It naturally does that. Who's who? What's what? Who's who? What's going to happen? What's the twist? Right. And all that. And the one I did call was that he was going to be their son. Her husband was going to be there. Yeah. I wasn't aware of that one. Yeah. He was going to be... Because she talked about it. He went to a city and got married and all that. And I was like, that's their son. And then they kind of went away from it. Right. And then they brought it back at the end. That one I called. But the whole everything else. I thought it was really unique. Because it didn't go in the normal direction that I know. No, it wasn't predictable. It would go in. And so I give the story a A plus. Well, there was one thing that was predictable. But I didn't give it any marks. And yes, the story, because story is so heavy. I gave it very high marks for story. It was original. But there is one thing that was stereotypical. And I wrote this in my notes while I was watching it. When she's telling him after he gets back. When she's saying something's wrong here. We've got to get out of here. And he's trying to calm her down, right? I wrote this. So many problems and so many films would be settled if husbands just listened to and trusted their wives. How many horror films have we seen or other films where the wife has a legitimate concern. And the husband's like, honey, Linda, Linda, listen. Linda, Linda, honey, listen. Obviously he didn't because he didn't care about it. He didn't care one iota. But yeah, the whole story was like great story. Keeping involving a witch, involving kids who are kind of dead or possessed. Right? And I really liked the twist. It reminded me a lot of Michael Flanagan. I love the fact that the witchy ghost person that we at first think is the antagonist is actually a sympathetic character. And then when you see the thing at the end, like I thought it was really powerful the moment when she's gonna stab herself and she's pleading with her to not make her do it. And she, the witch ghost woman who's all burned is screaming nonstop. And she's pleading with her and saying, I understand you. I understand this. I'm not gonna, it stops here. And it also because of exposure to this time of year and Bengal and everything with Andrani, I thought it's interesting. October's Halloween one, but it's also Durga Puja. And this is a really mother focused Halloween film. So the whole, you know, the goddess aspect and the empowerment of a woman was a surprising unexpected. And that's where the importance level came in. Was that? And then the obvious thing we'll talk about in a second. The whole sequence where she was alone for three days in that part and all the illusions that the witch kind of put on. I thought it was great because you couldn't tell what was real and what was not. Was it really happening or was she just seeing a vision? Yeah. A bunch of great sequences in there and well done by our lead actress. Like when she was dropping the baby in the well and then you just see a well full of children and obviously the symbolism that that involves there. And then the other time when you had both of the mothers stabbing themselves I thought it was actually really good prosthetics. Great prosthetics. For a low, low budget film. Blood coming out. I was really impressed. I thought, hats off to you guys. I thought they did a really good job with that. Really good jobs on the shooting of everything. I didn't so much like the hard black cuts. Almost, there's a bunch of them. It faded to black probably about a hundred times. It won't surprise me if the director's like, yeah, I feel your Corbin. Yeah, it's probably because of budget. I get it. But that was one of my gripes to the film. It was the exact same fade. It was the one and a half second black out fade up. Yes. I was like, okay, stop doing that. Please. But yeah, like you said, probably budget. But yeah, let's talk about the end. Obviously you figure out exactly what was going on with the big monologue and thing at the end with the mom and them all in the house and she finally confronts them. Right. And the fact that these village has been sacrificing girls and the symbolism that has for parts of India that not only do stuff like this but also the ways you see treat women and girls, children in general, which is why it's, I think, at least in most parts of India, illegal to figure out the gender of a baby before because of stuff like this that happens. Correct. It's just, it's an awful, awful thing. But obviously, if ever a film brings that to life, I love it and calls that out because that is monstrous. It's evil. Yeah. There's no other way. It's 100% evil. The statistic they showed at the end, and the minute I saw it, I started looking up things from the United Nations and other world organizations and sadly, India ranks way at the top. Like number one or two. And sadly, it happens in a lot of Asian countries with infanticide. And it's a staggering, I'm not speaking hyperbolically here. It's a holocaust level. Absolutely. And that's not even taking into consideration abortions that take place. I'm talking about living children who disappear because they were girls and you never hear from them again because they were disposed of in the millions. And that's what we know. Yeah. It's staggering and that in and of itself. I mean, I thought the twist we were going to get that had the message was the whole woman empowerment and the fact that this ghost haunting bad guy turned out to be the sympathetic bent neck lady. Yeah. That message of infanticide was really hit me right between the eyes of, I know I've heard stories about this. I didn't realize it was this big of a problem. Yeah. And we've seen films touch on the topic of the way certain parts of India treat women. Right. Like what was the one article 13 or who was it? When obviously they basically killed their daughter for being a lesbian. Yes. And different stuff like that and how they treat women. And so it's not an uncommon thing to for filmmakers because obviously art has always been a way for artists to kind of hold a mirror up to society. Correct. And hopefully bring about social change. Not always. Some is obviously strict entertainment, but in terms of art, art, art. Yeah. High art. High art. That's usually what it's been about. Yes. Is bringing something to light that should be brought into light through your platform and telling a message. Agreed. And this definitely did that in a very unique way in terms of a horror film, in terms of one that you didn't expect to get the style of message from. Yeah. But it kind of, I'm hoping, smacked people in the face. It did me and I hope it does other people and that's why I would like to see, the really great thing is that it's a worthy movie to watch if you like scary films. It's a worthy run. I will probably after watching it a couple times, I'll probably add it to my favorite films because I can guarantee when Halloween comes around next year, it'll be a movie I recommend to people and say, you know what'll surprise you? You should watch this Marathi film. And I love the fact that it's a recommendation as well from an industry that most Americans only think Bollywood and there's a reason for it and it's because it's the predominant industry that's been marketed here and to be able to recommend in particular, because we have, we've said it, we have so few horror films that we can recommend. It's really cool to recommend a Marathi film that's this good. Fun fact, the three ones that I would recommend are all regional, two of them are like, especially obviously Amis. Yeah, love Amis. And this one, and if I have somebody who I know that they're into the style of the Assamese one we just watched, I would recommend that as well. So it's all regional so far then. Agreed. The other one that hits me, which is not the regional one is I love Street. Oh yeah. And I liked Tumbad, but I love Tumbad. I love Street. Yeah. But some people I feel would love Tumbad. I agree. Because I know there's a bunch of people that would love it way more than we'd need. Even though it's not on my all time favorite list, I would absolutely let people know if you're looking for a good film that came out of India that's scary, you might really like Tumbad. Yeah, absolutely. But this was a great, really good movie. Yeah. We talked about, I just wanted to make sure we got to all the points. The cinematography I thought was really, really nice. Really good. The whole film, especially for something that you know had a small budget. I thought it was shot really well in terms of making you feel like the corn maze was this big thing that you can't get out of. Yeah, now that you mentioned it, because yes, it was great, lighting was uniformly really, really nice. And interestingly, and I'm sure they did this because of budget and just fatigue, this is probably the most day-lit horror film you're ever going to see. The amount of scary sequences that are taking place in bright sunlight, they did not use darkness as a primary contributor to the scare factor. Yeah. And that's a pretty high level achievement for a scary film. Absolutely, because obviously darkness brings with it a level of scariness. Scariness, mystery, danger, you can't see. But also, it's, I don't know if I'd say it's cheaper to film at night, but it is. You don't have to match color as much because there's no artificial light coming in. Correct. You have much more control over the elements. You're going to be less likely to have, not that they would have had sound issues there. They were out in the boondocks, as it were. But I'm just, for a film that was done over such a short period of time, and even though I said at the outset that there wasn't anything where you would say, wow, you need to see this particular performance, I will say the two main ladies who carried the film, but especially what Pooja had to do, there's a lot that she had to look at that never was there. Yeah. And I felt like she did an exceptionally good job in being believable with having to react to things that were never there. If you were watching the onset, it was just imagination from her part. And I thought that she did a fantastic job with that. Yeah, absolutely. Totally agree. Let us know what you thought about this film and what should be the next scary core Halloween film. Bring them on. And also, Marathi. What should be the next? I think we've seen 10 or 11, I want to say. I want to say, you're right. I think it's around 11. I think it's around there. And they've all been good. I don't think we've had a bad, and not the wrong would probably be the one that we liked the least. Right. But it wasn't because he wasn't good in it. It was just the film as a whole. We probably just liked the least. Yeah. It's one of those industries that's consistently putting out really, really quality content. Absolutely. Which is wonderful. So let us know for the next Halloween and the next Marathi film down below.