Tigers are Not Afraid
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[00:00:00] Alicia: Hey, just a heads up the episode you're about to listen to is about Tigers Are Not Afraid, directed and written by Issa López. Some relevant trigger warnings for this movie include child endangerment and gun violence, and our hosts ranked this movie as scary.

If you'd like to learn more about the movie, please visit our website progressivelyhorrified.transistor.fm for show notes and a transcript. After the spooky music we'll talk about the movie in full. So be forewarned: there will be spoilers. Now let's get onto the show.

[00:00:29] Jeremy: Good evening and welcome to Progressively Horrified the podcast where we hold horror, progressive standards it never agreed to. Tonight, we're talking about the Mexican crime drama slash political drama slash horror movie Tigers Are Not Afraid. I am your host, Jeremy Whitley. And with me tonight, I have a panel of cinephiles and cenobites. First they're here to challenge the sexy werewolf, sexy vampire binary, my co-host Ben Kahn.

Ben, how are you tonight?

[00:01:09] Ben: I'm torn because I'm increasingly not sure if child actors are an ethical thing to exist. But these kids keep fucking putting in amazing performances.

[00:01:20] Jeremy: Yeah, no, no. Anakin Skywalkers these guys.

[00:01:23] Ben: Like Awesome performances across the board.

Like I know I've been pretty harsh and down on the movies for the last few weeks I'm into Tigers Are Not Afraid. This is a very good movie.

[00:01:36] Jeremy: Yeah. And also the Cinnamon Roll of Cenobites, our co-host Emily Martin. How are you tonight? Emily?

[00:01:41] Emily: I'm wondering where I can get an OtterBox with an animated flying dragon.

[00:01:45] Jeremy: It's pretty cool, right?

[00:01:46] Emily: Like where hook me up. Anybody at Twitter and mega on Twitter. I, as long as there's no human trafficking involved that's a deal breaker. Yeah.

[00:01:56] Jeremy: And our guest tonight by day, she's a government accountant by night. She's a comics and scifi fan. And one of the patrons of the image that the cause Mr. Claremont, 30 points of psychic damage it Eugenia Pinzón.

Welcome.

[00:02:07] Eugenia: Thank you. I can't believe I saw the future king of Atlantis doing crimes.

[00:02:13] Ben: I did not realize that until like five minutes ago that Namor is our child murdering human trafficker slash political candidate.

[00:02:24] Emily: Absolutely. Yeah. He's a lot.

[00:02:26] Jeremy: He's really getting it in. I mean, Namor I think is not above murdering a child here and there, but it's not really like his thing.

You know, if he happens to flood a city and, and murder children, that's fine.

[00:02:36] Ben: Zach Snyder's Namor is killing children by the boatload.

[00:02:41] Jeremy: Before we jump into our full discussion to the movie, we're gonna do a quick recap. Emily drew the short throughout the night. So Emily uh, give it a shot.

[00:02:49] Emily: All right, I'm taking it away. So we're gonna start with some stats here. The, the director and writer is Issa López. It's starring Paola Lara, Juan Ramón López, Nery Arredondo, Hansel Casillas uh, Rodrigo Cortés, Ianis Guerrero and Teonch Huerta. I hope I did the, those pronunciations. Well, I tried my best.

The film begins with a little bit of context.

It explains that among all the stats of the deaths and disappearances resulting from the Mexican drug war in 2006, there are no numbers representing the orphan children as a result of all of the deaths and disappearances. And now our story begins. We have Estrella, she is an elementary school student in an unnamed Mexican city in the midst of a drug war. Uh, as a shooting, interrupts her lesson on writing composition, or she is telling a story about a prince wanting to become a tiger, her teacher consoles her by giving her three pieces of chalk, calling them three wishes. Classes are canceled for the day. So Estrella goes home to find an empty house, empty, except for the ominous blood streak that runs along the floored walls, portending death, I guess. Estrella still hunkers down despite the spooky blood uh, waiting for her mom to come home.

Meanwhile El Shine the tough orphan steals, a gun and a phone from a drunken gang member. Caco Shine, almost shoots Caco with the gun, but doesn't because he's an artist, not a killer.

Estrella proofs. Why the genie from Aladdin deliberately chooses not to bring people back from the dead. Estrella makes her first wish to bring her mom back, but mom's dead. Ed. Now Estrella has haunted Afaf Estrella leaves the house terrified of her. Mom's horrible, shrink, wrapped ghost, and returns to fine Shine looting her place. Estrella follows Shine to his crib quote unquote, which is basically a lost boy's Fort on the top of a roof. Several roofs. Yeah. In fact, and we are introduced to Shine and his gang, which includes Pop, the big softy, Tucsi, the scrappy storyteller and Morro who is the youngest.

Shane is the leader because he's tough. And he swears a lot. He tells a story about a tiger that has escaped from a drug Lord's estate after he was killed by the rival gang. The tiger now stalk the streets and eats little kids. Estrella wants to join their crew and they try to deter her in the most adorable way possible.

Then Morro offers her an animal cracker because she's alone and hungry. It's a very effective deterrence. It isn't, it's really cute. Despite leaving the house, Estrella is still haunted as fuck and Caco. The owner of the phone soon arrives to retrieve is stolen goods. Kids choose it, but lose Morro, Shine, blames Estrella for Caco following them and losing Morro Tucsi and Pop explain that the gang, The Huascas are human traffickers and practice satanic virtuals and will eat Morro. If they don't save him. Estrella offers to destroy the gang for wish chalk, but ch is like, no, just shoot him. Here's the gun. There's his house. Go do it. Uh, At first Estrella's like F that S but they guilt trip her into it.

So she walks into his house. Caco's already dead. In front of an exposition news report that claims that this up and coming politician Servando Esparza is also Chino the leader of the gang. The Huascas. She runs off and the gun somehow frees a metal snake that em, Blas in the handle of it. What does this mean? It's a mystery. Morro and the other kids are saved- to other kids. In fact, they belong to a different gang, but everyone still celebrates. Well, sheen doesn't accelerate, Shine.

Excuse me. Well, Shine. Doesn't accelerate. Let me try that one more time. Shine. Doesn't celebr.

[00:06:27] Ben: Yeah, you got it.

[00:06:28] Emily: Thanks.

[00:06:30] Jeremy: Shane never celebrates.

[00:06:31] Emily: He never celebrates cuz he's mad that Estrella bested him. After the festivities on the cool rooftop crib, Shane tells Estrella about how each of the boys lost their families. Later that night, the haunting intensifies as Estrella's mother warns her through an empty cup of noodle that the gang is coming after them and they need to hide somewhere else. She's also full of weird portentious phrases. Like bring him to us where we are. Typical ghost stuff. The kids leave the next day to find a new crib somewhat like Watership down, but more sad.

[00:07:07] Jeremy: Like Watership down, but more sad. That should be in the box. Yes.

[00:07:10] Emily: Yeah. on the way they, uh, return the rescued kids to their brother, who's part of the gang of older kids run by some older jock name's Brayan And he has some kind of deal with The Huascas.

And uh, even though he has given up on these brothers Shine his best at him. And he's like Estrella killed Caco. Ha ha ha ha ha. And Ryan is like, that's fucked up. They're gonna get you. We set a piano on fire. Kind of insensitive because. Shine's parents were killed by fire, but anyway,

[00:07:45] Ben: that had to have been a piano that they already had and someone wanted to get rid of cuz otherwise I refuse that any budget approved, like yep. Just a burning piano.

[00:07:55] Emily: I mean.

[00:07:55] Ben: Give us money to buy or build a piano that we can then explicitly set on fire.

[00:08:00] Emily: I have some art school critique, symbolism commentary about the piano, anyway. Shine's gang find an old magical school building. That's full of fish and soccer balls and arts and crafts and they play soccer and pretend to be Eurovision. And it's really cool. And there's like the fish and the floor it's red. It's like the Lord of the rings house, as they say. However, the secret scary blood trail is still after Estrella. , uh, she tries to run away from it. It's hard because it's spooky ghost blood. But the chalk does protect her.

The chalk that is in fact, her final wish. She finds Shine still has the Caco's phone because it has the only picture that he has left of his mother who was trafficked by Caco. They get a call on the phone. Brayan has ratted them out.

And now they know that Estrella has killed Caco. Estrella and Shined bond over his life story. He asks her to use her wishes to make his burn scar go burn scar, go away. But she refuses because she's pretty convinced her wishes are cursed. For good reason, I guess. I mean, I don't blame her. Shine returns to Estrella's house to retrieve photos of her mother.

But he gets caught by The Huascas and they force him to rat out the rest of the gang. They show up to retrieve the phone from Estrella. She is almost completely bested. However, the uh, bad guy is shot by Morro who still has Caco's gun and Morro sweet little Morro in his tiger plush are shot dead by this guy.

You can cry for a few minutes.

[00:09:34] Ben: I did have in my notes at that, oh, look the too pure for this sinful earth character was too pure for this sinful earth.

[00:09:42] Emily: Yeah.

[00:09:43] Eugenia: In my case, it was as simple "No! Morro no."

[00:09:48] Emily: Yeah. I mean, it, it happened super fast. Shine shows up and shanks the leg of bad guy. He lets Estrella go. Everyone gets away. Morro is still dead.

[00:10:00] Jeremy: They do carry his body with them.

[00:10:02] Emily: They carry, they take his body and his plush and they, inter him for the moment in a tower.

I don't know where the tower is if it's still in the uh, this school, but.

[00:10:12] Eugenia: It's I'm not sure. It's like an Institute. It's a pretty weird, eh, building. I didn't understand where they were.

[00:10:19] Emily: It's very it's I don't wanna say magical. Yeah, it's cool window. It's very lyrical, I should say, because it's hard to say something is very magical when there's a dead little boy who is in fact too good for this world, I guess.

[00:10:31] Ben: I mean, there's lots of magical movies with dead little kids.

[00:10:36] Emily: Not-

[00:10:36] Ben: Macaulay Culkin with the bee stings. I think that's what Bridge to Terabithia's about.

[00:10:42] Emily: Did they straight up?

[00:10:43] Ben: I never saw that one Jumanji movie where they were in space, but I assume a kid probably died in that.

[00:10:49] Emily: I mean, this is like full on innocent child's body.

Shine thinks that the reason that The Huascas are after them is because the phone must have incriminating evidence on it. And he's right, because there is in fact, a video of Chino who was also this uh, politician killing a victim. Chino calls them and they decide to make a deal to return the phone and Chino should make all of the Huascas disappear. That's their deal. Here's a phone. Get rid of your gang.

Meanwhile, the dragon that was on the phone flies away. Chino reveals that he killed Caco, not Estrella. And now everyone thinks that Estrella is a liar and they abandoned her with Morro's body saying, you gotta stay here with the dead kid. We're gonna go and cry. Yeah, that's fair. Estrella's just hanging out with Morro's ghost, and her mom's ghost shows up and every other ghost in the world shows up and she is freaked the fuck out. She leaves-.

[00:11:49] Jeremy: Let's uh, let's not forget about the living plush tiger that um, starts giving her things and indicating where to go.

[00:11:56] Emily: Oh yeah. I was getting to that like once motor spirit is free. The tiger is now animated. It makes cute little cat sounds too, which is just it's E like it's.

So a tear jerker, for sure. meanwhile, Pop and Tucsi are trying to convince Shine to give the phone to the police. Shines like what good have what good have the cops ever died and Pop and Tucsi are like uh, and uh, Shine is correct. They show the, the cops the phone and they're like, look at this phone with this incriminating.

Here's the drug Lord. And the cops are like F thats and they literally drive away.

[00:12:34] Jeremy: Yeah, the cop literally says you see who this is, we're leaving. Yeah. It's like horror cops set two 11, like all horror movie cops are useless. These cops are extra useless.

[00:12:44] Emily: Yeah. These cops are like, we're not even in this movie.

[00:12:47] Ben: I've gotta be honest. These cops did slightly better than I was hoping. Cuz I thought they was gonna show up and it was immediately gonna be like, oh the evidence, the, from the person we are also corrupt and taking money from. So the fact that they just like ran away instead of being like yank, we are kidnapping you to take you to the like the big, bad boss.

I was like, okay, at least you're just cowardly and not actively evil.

[00:13:15] Emily: They're probably not paid enough.

[00:13:17] Eugenia: I dunno, it's good or bad that the ACAB, it's bilingual. It's the same here than in the United States.

[00:13:25] Emily: I did notice that cuz there was also some, some interesting like, terminology that was like Shine as the kid's name. We, he would be called Shine and he would be called Shene.

[00:13:36] Eugenia: I think sometimes they say his name like China. It's actually it's an interesting thing because it's how a kid or someone who isn't familiar with English would understand the word. For example, Brian, it's a, it's the name you get?

Hearing the, instead of Brian, B R I a N.

[00:13:59] Ben: I a N. Yeah.

[00:14:00] Eugenia: The, the Mexican character is B R a Y a N. It's how people hear it. And so, oh, it's a cool name. That's call our kid Brian. How it's written? I dunno this way. It's how it sounds.

[00:14:17] Ben: I did have. And this may be too much. This may be dark. But I did have a very dark note, like right off the bat, which right when there's like gunfire in the classroom, around the classroom and they all ducked down on the floor. I wrote in my notes. Oh, so it's not just America where this happened.

It's always terrifying and disturbing to see.

[00:14:39] Emily: That like is one of the most terrifying things. It's just so real. There's a lot of stuff. That's very real about this movie where, you know, like, I don't mind that there's a snake coming off of the. Because at least snake, oh, there's something magic.

[00:14:50] Ben: This S snake coming off a gun or a phone case is not what makes this movie a horror movie. What makes this movie a horror movie is that this is very much a hell is real and the devils are us.

[00:15:02] Emily: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Shine discovers from the video that the woman in the video that is being killed by Chino is in fact, Estrella's mom. He notices this.

[00:15:14] Jeremy: Because of the picture he stolen because both the, the bracelet we keep seeing that Estrella wanted of her moms, which is a, a bunch of birds.

[00:15:21] Emily: Yeah. So, the bird bracelet is is now I forgot the word important. Significant the bird, the bird bracelet is significant.

[00:15:30] Ben: Would you say the bird is the word?

[00:15:32] Emily: No.

[00:15:33] Ben: That was terrible. I should apologize, but I won't

[00:15:37] Emily: The kids return to gather Morro's body and bury it. Estrella is haunted by Morro and he leads her to where they're burying interring him for real this time.

It is a burial at sea, although I'm not sure if it is a culvert or cistern, but it is water. And it is sad. They all convene to meet Chino at the uh, appointed location, which is some kind of abandoned bathhouse.

It's a cool location, but apparently it's also Chino's favorite place to kill people. Which, it's surprising that these kids agreed.

[00:16:10] Ben: That's a real mood setting up a meeting spot that's right by where you already are. Where it's like, where you wanna meet. Mm. How about across the street from me?

[00:16:21] Emily: This is where things get interesting. so they, uh, They catch the bus in war paint uh, just Tucsi and uh, Pop they've got magic marker on their face.

Like you're in the warriors or something. And then they finally get to the old abandoned spa. Chino at least keeps his word. They do the trade off and Chino kills his flunkies right in front of them after getting the phone and lets the kids go. But you know what? It ain't that simple folks. This spa because it is the place where all the people were killed.

It's also where all the bodies are. And also Shine switched the phones. So they didn't actually do the trade off. They're running from uh, Chino and finally Shine breaks the big news to Estrella that the uh, woman on the video was her mother. This changes stakes a little bit. Now at this point, Tucsi and Pop smartly have completely abandoned ship.

And no one blames them for that because they're done. They actually identify the location from the video.

[00:17:27] Jeremy: This is where the mom has been urging them to bring yes, the bad guy.

[00:17:32] Emily: Yes. Estrella decides that she's gonna use her final wish to wish away Shine scar.

Now that they're down to brass tax,

[00:17:41] Jeremy: um, This F Shine after Shine tells her that uh, wishes don't exist and neither tigers, all of this is just fairy tales, which just them and horrible, horrible shit.

[00:17:51] Emily: Yeah.

[00:17:51] Ben: For the record, tigers exist tigers and foxes. This movie, not knowing if tigers or foxes exist. They do.

[00:17:59] Emily: Yeah. How long who can say, but.

[00:18:02] Ben: So long as we've got the Joe exotics of the world who just keep making, like, making more as pets for crazy people.

[00:18:11] Emily: Just threw up in my mouth a little anyway. So the wish does come true. But it's because Shine gets shot in the face. It's really horrible and we're gonna cry. But first Estrella runs and is led by the tiger plush into the body pit. And there, she finally meets her mom. It's it was actually a really, really like sad heart wrenching scene where his mom was trying to like cover her rotted face with the plastic.

But there they share a final movement of farewell Estrella gets her bracelet as was promised by her mother.

[00:18:43] Jeremy: I do also like that when she's following the tiger, plus tiger. Plus straight up hands her the lighter that she's going to be momentarily Shines lighter.

[00:18:52] Emily: Yes. Shine had a lighter.

That was the lighter that was used to burn his house down. The tiger has given her the lighter and she leaves Luing Chino into the room full of corpses, locking him in on the way out. She gives the lighter back to the ghost of Shine and Shine sets the place on fire. The corpses have gained their vengeance. He has been returned to them as was foretold by the spooky ghost. And Estrella sees the tiger. It is real. It's probably the, the most real thing that she sees other than, you know, the death and the kids and the murder and stuff. And, And whether this is the tiger from the story, whether it is a real tiger, it does not attack her, eat her, but she is uh, inspired by this. And she leaves this spa building these, this bathhouse and walks into a field, which I think is not a metaphor for death. Yeah.

[00:19:51] Jeremy: We no reason to believe that she's been injured.

[00:19:53] Ben: I'm I'm also pretty sure it's the same tiger from life of pie.

[00:19:56] Emily: I thought that tiger was entirely CG. I believe

[00:20:00] Ben: This tiger. I mean, it's very real. It takes away in the same universe. Same tiger. Same narrative, same character reprising his role.

[00:20:08] Jeremy: I think it was long. It was interesting to me like good choice from a directorial point of view that like Estrella sees this tiger. The actress is never anywhere close to it. Yeah. She stops and sees something and then there's a completely separate shot of a tiger. And then she is awed by the site of the tiger and goes the other direction.

[00:20:30] Ben: There are definitely some directors we've covered who absolutely would've put a child in front of a tiger.

[00:20:36] Emily: Yeah. Have you ever seen crawl this though? I think there was a, a shot, like a reverse shot of the tiger walking towards her and then back.

[00:20:43] Jeremy: Yeah. It's just a shot of the tiger though. Okay. Stray is nowhere in that shot. Okay.

[00:20:49] Emily: So, uh, that's the movie?

[00:20:51] Ben: It's good movie. It's real intense. The second. Estrella's like, I wish to remove this, like for the scar to leave your face, I'm like, oh no, don't say it like that. Yeah. You gotta be real careful. I'm like, man, now, like his whole, like a grenade's gonna fall out of the sky and his whole fucking face is gonna blow off his head and it'll be like, ah, look, the scar's gone.

The Burn's gone.

[00:21:16] Emily: He's gone. And so is the scar.

[00:21:18] Ben: I'm like, as soon as you did like did that, I'm like, oh no Shine D no was out of my mouth, like a millisecond before the bullet hit the cheek.

[00:21:31] Jeremy: Yeah. They're on some real, like wish master logic on these three wishes. Like, oh yeah. These wishes are, it's all bad.

[00:21:38] Emily: Yeah.

[00:21:38] Ben: This is some real like this teacher just giving her some real fucking monkey pot, chalk.

[00:21:44] Emily: Isn't it that knowledge? I say as a teacher, but.

[00:21:47] Ben: That's a book of Genesis shit you're getting into now.

[00:21:50] Emily: So I wanted to mention the school shooting scene because yes, that is rough.

[00:21:55] Jeremy: Nice light way to start off a movie.

[00:21:56] Emily: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:21:57] Ben: That was really just letting you know exactly what kind of tone you're in for.

[00:22:02] Emily: In this situation, the shooters, the shooters aren't necessarily after the kids.

It's still a terribly traumatizing situation. But I was thinking about that, like, the shooters were shooting at a classroom and there were bullet holes all over the side of the classroom. And there's probably a lot more guns involved. But it was it, I just thought about a contrast between, the drug war shootings or like drive-by shootings in this case and school shooters.

When I was growing up in the nineties, when there was like war on drugs and stuff like that, there was a lot of paranoia about like drive-by shootings and, there's, they do happen. But. We didn't ever hear enough about them. We always heard more about school shootings. So that was an interesting, like, I don't know.

It just brought that up to me, that scene. Also, you could tell that a lot of these kids have been through this, especially since you have like a group of kids on the street, just playing, cuz school's out. This guy's been shot and his body is bleeding out under

[00:23:07] Ben: a, a blanket.

Yeah. Right now I know this is going to further expose me as the token psychopath of the podcast, but did anyone else see that scene and think to themselves what a waste of a good rug?

[00:23:21] Emily: It was a nice rug. But I think that, I think that rug had been, it's seen its its time.

[00:23:27] Ben: I guess if you shot the guy first and the blood already got on the rug, then it's in for a penny in, for a pound. You're not getting that stain out. But if you're like, Hey, we just gotta throw something on this guy quick. Get me that nice rug.

[00:23:40] Emily: You really tied the room together.

[00:23:41] Ben: Yeah. It tied the sidewalk together.

[00:23:44] Eugenia: Probably they are, the police already expand their budget. So , we don't have a note, something to cover. There's something in the house. Yes. There's a, a rough.

[00:23:55] Ben: How about that detail of the little kids playing limbo using the police caution tape.

[00:24:00] Emily: It's a very DIY situation and that was something else that I wanted to mention about the piano thing is that,

[00:24:08] Ben: I haven't seen a piano that on fire, since the Philadelphia Phillies won the world series, that's a true story. There's an interesting story. Goddamn grand piano in the middle of the fucking street on fire, a bus was overturned and I saw three men steal a tree.

[00:24:26] Jeremy: That's.

[00:24:26] Emily: What?!

[00:24:27] Jeremy: That's the Philadelphia story. That's what that movie.

is about

[00:24:30] Ben: Yeah. Is that the Philly, you know, in love.

[00:24:33] Emily: Isn't, didn't they have an experiment about that.

[00:24:35] Jeremy: what's, what's striking to me is how um, matter of fact, death and losing people is in this movie. Yes. Um, That like. Morro gets kidnapped and they're like fuck it. Like we lost him. That's it. That's it for Morro.

Like that, they've all sort of accepted that their parents are dead, that, you know, other than Estrella, there's not um, a lot of ceremony about it. You know, we, we find out what happened to most of their parents later on through, Shine's telling of it, but like the body in the street, as you know, covered up by the rug is like, it's just a split second thing.

It's like, oh, she's walking down the street. Oh, there's a dead body. There gotta go the other way. Yeah. You know, and it's so like,

[00:25:16] Ben: you think that shows up on the way app, like you load up on ways and it's like, you like at least cross the straight,

[00:25:23] Jeremy: I mean that in Philadelphia, I'm sure.

[00:25:25] Emily: The piano certainly shows up on the Waze app.

[00:25:27] Jeremy: Yeah. I don't know. It was really interesting to me because I think we see so many movies that. Linger so long on the violence and the violence is sort of matter of fact, and this it's the fantasy that's really frightening to them and to, to her, especially, you know, the, the stuff with her mom coming back and the, the ghost of her mom is easily the scariest thing in this movie.

Other than, you know, the, the few big moments where something horrible happens.

[00:25:54] Ben: The ability for human beings to adapt. Especially for children to adapt is both inspiring and horrifying. cuz that's the thing like this movie is not just unrelenting, suffering and sadness and terrible. There are moments like where this movie very poignantly focuses on wonder and joy.

Like when they see like the coy pond dancing to a music video on the TV, discovering the soccer balls, like these kids will go through horrible things, but then in a second they will be back to being just children, like happy to be playing and this constant reminder that like these are not tiny adults, these are children. Like it is endlessly heartbreaking.

[00:26:43] Emily: The thing that I kind of failed to really highlight in my recap because this movie is complicated. Was that whole running theme of the fairytale of the prince and the tiger.

[00:26:56] Ben: Which by the way, starts with, if tigers don't forget, I'm like that's elephants.

[00:27:00] Emily: Tigers don't forget either.

[00:27:02] Ben: Let's test it. Scientists. Tell me how tigers memories are.

[00:27:06] Emily: They, they do love pumpkins. They have a, you love pumpkins and ancestral memory

[00:27:12] Jeremy: game with a tiger.

[00:27:12] Ben: I was honestly expecting like like them to be trapped. And then like an actual tiger comes out of nowhere and mall someone they're like, oh shit, tiger was real.

[00:27:21] Jeremy: Think it's interesting to me, that Estrella seems to be the only one that's seeing all the fairytale stuff. Like the fairytale is all, all her thing. Arguably in her head, it's difficult to tell the way it presents it.

[00:27:34] Ben: The movie does give creedance that it's all real when one scene where Estrella only knows where the other kids are because Morro's ghost tells her.

[00:27:43] Jeremy: Yeah. Or that she knows where the bodies are because a combination of her mother and the plush tiger. Tell her.

[00:27:48] Emily: Yeah. maybe she has just really good instincts or maybe she's got, visions. Um,

[00:27:53] Ben: Again, we need to know what's up with this teacher. What kind of fucking chalk was that?

[00:27:57] Emily: That's the thing is that the chalk was cursed.

Like the wishes came with consequences and I think that's more of a commentary about power because you can't just make these things happen without a consequence. Whereas, Shine has his idea that there's no such thing as what as wishes or tigers or, or anything. Tigers are real, but I mean, there's no such thing as the tigers that they're talking about, the tigers that aren't afraid. In his world, tigers are tigers and they're just an animal.

Even though earlier, he was talking about how the tiger's the king of his own broken kingdom and the beginning of the film, the story that Estrella was telling was about a prince who couldn't become a tiger because he forgot to be a prince. And I feel like that is sort of a reference to the fact that he had forgotten to be a kid.

And he couldn't become anything more if he did, if he lost that hope. I think that's one thing that is being said with that story. And also, so I was bringing this up with a piano because it really, really indirectly led me to another thing about Shine is that he is an artist and their little crib, their like rooftop Fort was full of like weird sculptures and, uh, Shine had his like characters drawn everywhere.

[00:29:19] Ben: I love the graffiti. Yeah. Like after Morro dies and he does the new and like, like that's his way of mourning. Like this is a kid who is so clearly has so many emotions that he feels he has to bottle up to be the tough guy leader and God between Brayan and And um, Namor gives us so many examples of where that couldn't potentially take him.

Like there are foils and. It's only through his art and these brief moments that only Estrella sees that just shows like he is just this well of vulnerability and sadness and hurt.

[00:29:59] Emily: Yeah.

[00:29:59] Jeremy: He's, he's doing his best and seems like to be tough for his boys, you know. it's

[00:30:04] Ben: Crazy how good Juan Ramón López is like.

[00:30:08] Jeremy: Yeah both he and Paula. Laura are so good. Like all these kids are good. The two of them are amazing. Cause I think so much of, of Juan Ramón López's role a Shine involves not talking. While not saying things and you getting stuff from his facial expression and the way he carries himself and things like that.

It's he's so good. I think what's interesting to me is like, we get all these interactions with fairytale and this has a very like, Peter Pan sort of feeling to it. You know, we have this character in Estrella who is, sort of the Wendy, who's the one girl that's coming into this group of lost boys.

And I think the movie like plays around with the fairytale stuff and the fantasy stuff. And it, you know, very much wants you to see and believe all of that stuff and for her to see and believe all of that stuff. But at the same time, it makes no bones about the fact that like, uh, these heroes these kids that go through these, things, they don't make it out.

Like, it's very rare that anybody survives this it's not a happy ending story, even, you know, Estrella does actually make it out, but you know, what is out there for her at this point? Her mom is dead. And who knows what comes next for her?

It's just survival is the closest thing to a win. She gets.

[00:31:25] Ben: It's very haunting and painful. Seeing her go through the process of just coming home from school and her mom, isn't there. Mm-hmm, waiting. And the mom doesn't come home. Doesn't answer the phone. And you just see this little girl have to go through the process of wondering how long does she wait, holding out hope, having to face that truth.

And eventually just having to be like, okay. And just having to face that in a split second, she has gone from someone with a home and a mother to an orphan, just scraping by on the street and just, I just very emotionally powerful.

[00:32:01] Eugenia: Well, one of the teams and one of the saddest part of the movie for me is the loss of community in how the violence, the, the fight against drugs destroy the city. The families. Estrella's completely alone. She doesn't have neighbors and godfathers even taking away the religious connotation of, of godfathers. Usually in Mexico, they are like a second father, like an uncle or aunts that help you in different situations. So it seems that she's completely alone in the world, after her mother is gone, it's the saddest part.

I think there is a part where you can see the neighbors fleeing away mm-hmm and. It's when she decide to join Shine and the others, but, and that's the cutest part in the other, by the other hand that uh, Shine although he's very stern he has the language of a pirate. He creates this little family and community that not only focus on surviving, but like, playing and trying to have a good time.

I dunno.

[00:33:16] Emily: Yeah.

[00:33:17] Jeremy: Yeah. And I think that's part of what, what makes Shine. A character that, that you don't hate even like he is he's very mean to Estrella in the beginning. He's not gonna allow her to join the group. He makes her, sleep outside and refuses for any of the, the boys to like give her any food or blankets or anything.

He yells at Morro for eventually giving her an animal cracker. But like he's doing it because he thinks that like her coming into this place is going to bring the gangsters. It's going to bring the Huascas and that's gonna get his, little gang killed. You know, well, I do think they always come after girls.

I, I think one, one thing I had a question about as we were watching this, and I think it goes along with so much of the rest of the stuff in the movie is there's this conversation where uh, they're talking about the virtuals, the rituals that uh, the guys have that maybe this, the Huascas are somehow semi satanic.

That they're sacrificing people to to the devil and that guy uses, you know, 6 66 with the code on his phone. Mm-hmm. It's unclear how much of them murdering people has to do with satanic rituals and how much of it's just that they're a gang. But I think that goes very much in with the rest of the movie of not being sure what is a fairytale and what's just harsh reality.

[00:34:32] Ben: I did like how, at least the way the boys presented it, their feelings about girls was very similar to old time pirates about women on ships, where they're just like women are like women bring curses and bad spirits. So she can't stay.

[00:34:49] Emily: They've got crystals in their bodies that attract demons and the demons bring bad luck.

As a woman, I can tell you, this is true, but only when I'm on a boat

[00:34:58] Ben: Like, I know Shine was actually thinking ahead and gaming out the situation, but I liked how the other boys were just like, we hear you. Like girls are cursed.

[00:35:07] Emily: Yeah. It was, the least convincing deterrent I'd ever seen, at least from the rest of 'em like Shine.

Certainly he was, you know, swearing and, and saying a lot of slurs. After one night, Estrella is like, okay, I'm not gonna beat you up. they're trying to make her approve herself. And there's a point where she's like, fuck this. I'm not gonna go in and shoot the man. And she's like, you're the man, you do it. And then he te he tells her, you have to become a man in order to join our club.

Which I thought was interesting.

[00:35:39] Ben: Beyond the gender politics of that line. I'm so glad that, that isn't really necessarily like our first kind of impression. Like, I'm glad that we don't meet Shine through Estrella's eyes. We meet Shined through the scene of him stealing the gun and having this opportunity to kill the person who took his mother and being unable to do so, because then that is such an important touchstone that we, the audience then have that paints all of his actions and feelings for the rest of it.

Like. Like him forcing Estrella to be the one to kill the human trafficker reads so differently. If we don't have that knowledge that he was unable to do it, that he was unable to do it himself and is torturing himself over it. Yeah.

So, yeah. I don't know. Again, this is a really good movie with really good characters. Yeah. And is written really well. I don't, I don't have snarky shit to say about this movie. It's really

[00:36:39] Emily: good. The only thing that I'm snarky about is the fact that I just, be really cool to have the dragon on my phone, come to life and fly around.

But I don't, again, I don't know if that comes with the satanic

[00:36:51] Ben: that requires able to make a new feature and you know, they're never gonna do that shit again.

[00:36:56] Eugenia: Question. There's really a difference between red mass and black mass. I'm not familiar with the supernatural. I, I grew up Catholics and I'm not sure how stereo a difference are the same, the satanic thing.

[00:37:11] Emily: The satanic thing that they're the, like the guy has 6, 6, 6 on his gun and he has a dragon and stuff like that. It's not like super satanic. I think it's more of like a macho thing, especially because it's, you know, there's a lot of people who there who are Catholic and so he wants to be scary.

I also know that there's, I remember hearing stories about a gang. I can't remember the details. I'd have to look it up, but there was, there was, there were stories about a gang in Mexico that was also kind of a cult. And they practiced a, a, this form of ritual that involved a caldron. And I can't remember the name of it.

[00:37:48] Eugenia: Santa Muerte?

[00:37:49] Emily: Yes. I think it was Santa Muerte! Okay.

[00:37:54] Eugenia: Santa Muerte is the figure of, of the, with like the, imagine the Virgin, but it's a skull, it's a skeleton. And with the site and supposedly there are people that pray to, to, I'm not sure her, I'm not sure the trainer. I to get power, I think is by the definition that maybe if I pray to death, they won't come for me soon.

Something like that. I'm not sure there are places here that you can see that figure where you buy some Plants and aromatic candles.

[00:38:35] Emily: Oh, yes. I've heard about that. Actually. I, I, I looked it up and it's um, what they called palo mayombe which I think is closer to it's its own thing. like A lot of, very heavily Christian areas, you know, the, the, um, Iconography of demons and Satan are usually picked up by these people who are, criminals or trying to be badass or whatever, just to, to uh, intimidate other people.

I looked up the name, the drug and human car trafficking cartel, the Huascas. And I know that the name can mean whip also drunk and also penis . So,

[00:39:13] Eugenia: Actually trying, I think that is the term for it in Argentina. I was trying, there's not really the word Huasca in Mexico apparently but there is a place called it's a county.

And according to this, there is a place called Huasca de Ocampo the word Huascas comes from Huascazaloya uh, from the Nahuatl language. That means place of joy. So that's-

[00:39:41] Ben: Wow. That is so thank you. A dark name for a human traffic. Yeah, no, that is really good to know. And what an even darker than expect a name for a human trafficking group though, I gotta say, and again, maybe this explains, you know, that he's name or, but I was surprised at first when El Chino's first reaction to getting the phone back seem to be like, well, a deal's a deal.

I'm a man of my word, time to murder my entire human trafficking operation.

[00:40:08] Jeremy: Yeah. I mean, you know, he's, he is running for office. He's gotta get rid of the, he's gotta cut the weight there.

[00:40:13] Ben: Chino is in a completely separate, like a long, good Friday gangster trying to go legit movie and spoilers for every gangster tries to go legit story. It never fucking works ever.

[00:40:28] Emily: I do think just like a lot of the stuff that happens to Estrella We're only seeing the very, very surface of these complex drug cartel interactions and political intrigue and corruption and all this kind of stuff. Because, you know, like with the initial scene where she's supposed to shoot Cockle, he's already dead, but she thinks that she killed him because a gun went off and she saw a gunshot wound.

You know, I think in another way Chino's killing of his attendance is essentially something that he was planning to do all along. And he, you know, wants to make it, look to these kids. Like he's doing something that almost honors them to, to have them let their guard down. I don't even know if he had any intent to kill the kids because they're kids.

He's probably, he probably doesn't give a shit. And his actions and all of these characters' actions that are going on in this this world of the SKAs are only seen through the filter of these kids who know, the reality of life, just beyond fairy tales.

Like they're newly disillusioned, if that, and like Morro is so traumatized that he can't speak but he still favors his tiger toy. So there's like, there's a commentary on perception and also like these kids struggling to still be kids and see things as kids and still have like that moral compass, like Pop and, Tucsi trying to.

Give the phone to the cops, even though they know it's probably not gonna do anything, but that's what the movie say is the right thing to do. I did have a question actually also about imagery. I saw a lot of, and I didn't look this up, which I should have, but I'd rather ask everyone about it.

I saw a lot of black ribbons over doorways.

[00:42:17] Eugenia: Yes. Yes. It's usually a sign to put to put a red uh, black ribbon, is that someone died on your family or someone in the house died. So it's a way, even in the WhatsApp some people put that simple to make note that someone close to you died.

OK. So seeing a lot of black ribbons in the same small town, it's a bad thing.

[00:42:42] Emily: And I saw there were doorways that had like three or four of them over the door, too, , that, I knew that that was like significant, but I just didn't know why thank you for, for letting us know cuz it's really it's an important image in the film.

[00:42:56] Ben: I was a little confused why he was so desperate to get the phone back, given that it is in no way, a secret that he is both running for office and a human trafficker.

Like the news is just like noted human trafficker and murder person. El Chino is running for office still leading in the polls. None of the known murder and human trafficking slowing him down. Yeah.

[00:43:21] Jeremy: Yeah. I think it's like,

[00:43:23] Ben: what were the police gonna do? Continue to not arrest him?

[00:43:26] Emily: We, after watching LA.

Which is about, this guy going on trial for genocide and then being convicted of genocide and then the conviction of genocide being overturned, like that has to do with corruption. Yeah. like, yeah,

[00:43:47] Ben: I did like, I think that, oh, sorry. I did like just how they hair El Chino from a world building standpoint, how, like they showed those campaign posters fucking like all around the environment where, to the point where like this guy is kind of an like a very omnipresent force, despite only appearing in the movie for like a couple scenes.

[00:44:11] Emily: Yeah. I thought the telegraphing there was pretty successful. Like I thought that was, yeah. That was pretty smooth.

Like they've had to make a life without their parents as a result of this drug war, but all they understand is who's after them or who they can avoid to continue to survive. So you know, the kids don't really have. Much issue until Chino is identified as their enemy number one. And I think that also has to do with the fact that Estrella is so haunted because she runs from her ghost. She has a lot more like she, brokers a deal with a drug Lord on a phone, but runs in terror from the ghost of her mother because to her, the ghost of her mother is more real and more terrifying than every day dealing with a corrupt adult.

[00:45:01] Jeremy: So yeah, I think, you know, for, for most of the movie she identifies the ghost as being her mom, but also she is. Entirely willing to buy into the fact that her mother is dead because you know, it, it is a weird ghost thing and she hasn't seen its face. And, you know, she doesn't know what happened to her mother which is in some ways more horrifying than like, you know, knowing that her mother is dead.

Like, she just doesn't know what happened to her.

[00:45:29] Ben: Yeah. And then, and this, the ghost mom is real creepy. Like there's some definitely like some like skin crowing moments when

[00:45:36] Jeremy: the, the hand reaches out of the like cup of

[00:45:39] Ben: noodles. I was just gonna say, when the hand comes out of the cup, like maybe go like, Ugh,

[00:45:44] Emily: and the, the like weird plastic and you can't really see, and it, the plastic is really creepy to me because that is so real, you

[00:45:51] Ben: know, like that's, she's just in the corpse space, man.

That is just like, that is a horrifying on both a gore level. And. On that existentially terrifying level that like, this is not a monster that committed this unfathomably night, marriage violence. This was a human being who did this. Yeah. This wasn't just one Aran monster. This is a group of human beings doing this on an organized systemic level is just, oh, it was just so much more disturbing than like a Mon than like a monster in its own way.

Yeah,

[00:46:32] Jeremy: I was. And I was gonna say like I, there's a lot of things I, I love about this movie. I think it's really brilliantly made and it's it's the director Issa López's third movie, like she's only made two movies previous to this and they were both like comedies. One is a musical comedy and this is like, So well put together, she wrote and directed it.

This is her first horror work. And like everything about it is so tight and so well put together in a way that is rare to see from any director, not to mention somebody who's, relatively new to directing, cuz she's got, 10 credits in directing. She's got a couple since this, but like, she came up like writing on, telenovelas and stuff like that.

So like this is a, this is a very different kind of thing than that. It's so beautiful and horrible. Like in this, this combination that this, it feels like a fairy tale the whole time. Even as the sort of gritty, horrible, realistic violence of it plays out. It, yeah, like I, I cannot say enough about, about her.

I think, you know, we would say. Generally we talk about, you know, is a movie feminist. And I do think this one scores, some points there, but in particular, you know, it has a, a female director who is incredibly good at her job.

[00:47:54] Eugenia: One of the most important things. I dunno if you see have seen some Mexican movies, but most of them have like a ton of how do you say this was made by the donation of CocaCola or product placement enterprise product placement.

Yes. Thank you. This movie has none of them, none, not even in the credits, not in the movie. Uh, The only thing is the plastic this movie was made with the tax St. There is a enterprises can give some money. So, some movies can be made. So that's the only thing, but not in commercial. So half that freedom, it's so amazing, especially for a Mexican director.

And so it's amazing.

[00:48:40] Ben: That would've been some weird product placement too, where I've been like, ah, Coca-Cola the official drink of drug war. Orphans.

[00:48:49] Emily: Yeah. I mean, they had cup of noodle, but they never actually were like cup of noodle,

[00:48:55] Jeremy: really insist cup noodles as healthy for you. If you uh, if you eat the peas.

Yeah.

[00:48:59] Ben: Eat the green peas. It could have been like, look, we got Wilson brand soccer balls. That's what we're finding in the koi pond in the koi puddle mansion. Yeah. I think the closest thing get to that is like I get, when they find the koi pond.

[00:49:14] Jeremy: I'm gonna say they point they paint an actual, like, an actual football players.

Well they poorly paint his number and his, his name on the back of uh, Moro when they're getting ready to play soccer.

[00:49:25] Ben: And again, we have seen a very, very artsy stop motion film. Still had some weird product placement in it, like Pokemon and the Denver Broncos.

[00:49:37] Emily: Oh yeah. God,

[00:49:39] Jeremy: I forgot the word.

[00:49:40] Ben: It was all very distracting. The Denver Broncos Jersey, especially

[00:49:45] Jeremy: Give the number 14. They give him the, you know, Rito Jersey. Well, they tried

[00:49:51] Ben: to give him number 14. I found it very adorable. How it turned into number one claw

[00:49:55] Jeremy: Yeah, one Y yeah, you try to do those 3d numbers and you always mess those up as a kid, you know?

[00:50:02] Emily: It just should have put a Stuy, like super S on there.

Just called it. they did try. I appreciated that, even though that Morro couldn't see it, they were honest at least.

[00:50:13] Jeremy: Yeah. I guess, you know, going off of the, the stuff about Issa López, do you guys feel like this movie is feminist?

[00:50:21] Emily: Yeah, I do.

[00:50:22] Eugenia: Yes.

[00:50:22] Emily: Especially how there's a bit at the beginning with the memory that Estrella had with her mom, where she asked her mom, if she was a princess and her mom was like, no, you're a warrior. And the prince and princesses metaphor didn't have anything to do with being helpless, more so than it had to do with being innocent. At least that's how it seemed to me.

[00:50:46] Jeremy: The way that they're presenting it is, you know, we we've forgotten that we were princes it's, it's much more like we were princess rather than like princesses needing to be saved.

[00:50:55] Ben: Yeah. And look, I mean, I think Estrella is a great character and I don't know. I know it's not explicitly feminist, but just that its perspective is like, we want to tell the stories of like the children of victims of human trafficking.

Like just that level of, we want to put and give their perspective of the people affected by this. The movie feels compassionate on a very profound level. I think if that makes sense.

[00:51:26] Emily: Absolutely.

[00:51:27] Jeremy: Yeah. And I think a lot of these, a lot of movies like this, I think the tendency would be to have Shine, be the main character.

I mean, even a movie like city of God, which is, you know, based on real events, which is an incredible movie. All the women are sort of secondary in that story. And it's about sort of growing up with, gangs and gangsters and everything. And. I think this makes a really concerted effort to show this story and this life and everything through the, the eyes of this young girl.

And it never feels like she's not important. She's not in every scene. You know, they do shift perspective occasionally, but it's definitely her moving.

[00:52:03] Emily: Yeah. And she is the one who has the most agency in the movie by far. I mean, other, like as much as any of the protagonists do. The kids are certainly relatively helpless against these drug cartels in, real life.

But we're also seeing this through the ideal lens of kids and including a.

Yeah.

[00:52:24] Jeremy: Yeah. Um, following up on that, I don't think there's really any queer themes. There's no, QIA a S in here there's really, I think, thankfully they don't go for nothing romance between her and Shine, which I feel like a lot of these movies would do. Yeah.

[00:52:38] Ben: I'm glad there's no romance there. It's just allowed to be an incredibly emotionally complex of these two children navigating profound, hurt and loss while also being so desperate for connection.

You know, I do think again, this is and again, this isn't specific to feminism or queer issues. I do think this movie's exploration. Masculinity through Shine is particularly interesting. The way you can see how both like the people around him and the world and the circumstances he finds himself in is all very pushing himself towards trying to be this very aggressive, unfeeling, tough person.

But at the same time, he is allowed to have this very, he is allowed to both have and freely express this absolute, like love and need for his friends. And like they, the at no point do these friends ever hide from each other how much they mean to each other, and that they're allowed to have these, this very openly loving friendship with, still plenty of ribbing because.

They're little boys and that's gonna happen.

[00:54:00] Emily: Well, there, there seems to be a distinct amount of self-awareness when they depict the boys and their attempt at masculinity. Right. And it's not over the top. I mean, yeah. It gets a little bit over the top with Shine, but comparative to something like, I don't know, like you think about hook and the lost boys.

Yeah. That's a movie for kids, but

[00:54:24] Ben: that's why I think it's so important that we get that scene of Shine, being unable to kill the trafficker at the beginning, because it tells us that every scene throughout the rest of this movie isn't oh, this is who Shine is. He's this aggressive belligerent person.

And that's who he is. This lets us know from the beginning that every scene afterwards is, oh, this is him trying to force himself to be. Person. We already know he's not.

[00:54:51] Emily: Yeah. Yeah. That bit of context is really important.

[00:54:54] Ben: Yeah. Also again, not related to the themes, but how about when they find that stage and their immediate thought is let's play, Mexico's got talent.

Oh my God

[00:55:04] Jeremy: hop has the, makes a, you know, helmet full of Christmas lights and is plugged in while he is trying to do a wrap on the stage is just, it's fantastic.

[00:55:14] Emily: It's wonderful. Like that doesn't and then Mauro does the like line across the throat thing, like, like you might have still have had the big cane and pulled him off the

[00:55:23] Ben: stage.

Like this movie knew how to balance. both Joy and sorrow to make both emotions feel so real and hit so powerfully. Yeah. The joyful moments were, again, the joy I felt watching these kids wa like kick around soccer balls and the absolute, just like sorrow at seeing them half of them also just be gunned down in front of us.

Yeah.

[00:55:54] Jeremy: The way they made joy devastating, you know, is wonderful.

[00:55:57] Ben: Yeah. I mean that, that's exactly it. They made joy devastating, cuz it's always reminds you of like, this should just be their normal life. This should just, this should be the only thing on their mind. Is this play not surviving the cards? Hell, that's hunting them down.

Yeah. Yeah. That's not a thing people their age should ever have to fathom. And it's a heartbreak of the world that they

[00:56:22] Emily: do. That contrast was also present with the, with Brayan's gang where, they were destroying things and they, they seemed a lot more like they would

[00:56:33] Ben: well, they seemed like how foil for these kids, like, it was like, this is what they would grow up into if they like, are all still alive by like 16, 17, 18.

[00:56:45] Emily: Yeah. Or, you know, his options that they have.

[00:56:47] Jeremy: Yeah. I think that ties, I think pretty closely into the topic of trauma and anxiety and everything in this. Like, it doesn't deal specifically with any, any sort of named mental illness in this, other than the trauma that, you know, they're all dealing with and then is causing specifically Mor not to speak.

Mm-hmm, , It's a pretty, I feel like it's a pretty decent depiction of trauma without it really like beating that drum too much. These kids are traumatized every day is traumatic. They're still dealing. Yeah.

[00:57:19] Emily: And they're, they're honest about it. Yeah. Like it's not like Shine is a little bit self-conscious about his keeping the phone, but mostly because he knows that the phone is a bit of a liability, and he knows that the other kids kind of know that, but they're also sensitive to him because they know that he, he has a reason to do so.

But they do communicate like he does tell astray at what happened to everybody. And he is. Aware of his scar and he's, self-conscious about his scar, so it's not, and it doesn't take them that long. I mean, they have been through a lot together, but it doesn't take them a huge amount of time to really open up.

it's not that it's not that tough enough to crack because they're not so broken, I guess. I mean, I don't know if that's the term that I really wanna use, but like they're yes. I think

[00:58:11] Eugenia: the only moment we can see here trying to out his furious is anger when type painting the soccer ball and that one looked like, Caco and he start,

Stabbing the bolt, like,

[00:58:24] Emily: yes,

yes he does. He. He pack balloon. And, and then I think then he gives Estrella a new or not a balloon, but a ball. He the one to pick with tigers. Yes. And they're like, oh, you drew kittens. And he's like, they're tigers. Mm-hmm for protection. Which, I mean, he was painting tigers for a while as well.

Like before that he

[00:58:47] Ben: was painting. That's what I'm just saying. This kid should be just be like, fucking, like just drawing tigers on his skateboard and in school drawing Goku in a notebook yeah.

[00:58:59] Emily: Yeah. Like even, not even Goku, like he, he has his own style and his mural of them saying goodbye to Morro is like, so heart wrenching.

[00:59:08] Ben: Yeah. That was Ooh. Like again, like that's how he grieves. That is how he is able to express emotion. Without compromising this version of himself, he feels he needs to be to survive.

[00:59:25] Emily: He drew himself crying. Yeah. Which is like a lot more than other kids would do. You know, especially kids that like cuss out their friends, you know, , he made a public mural of himself crying.

So I think that, that's that honesty right there.

[00:59:41] Jeremy: I feel like you could write a whole paper about like, just comparing Shine to Moses from attack the block. And they're both sort of like, oh yeah. Kids who just had this, this, these awful things happen to them and are, you know, the ones who have sort of stepped up and decided to harden themselves to protect everybody else.

But they're still just like such good sensitive kids inside. Just trying to deal with all this. Craziness. Yeah.

[01:00:10] Emily: well we have social some social justice. I don't know about racial social justice.

[01:00:15] Jeremy: I think the social justice in the class ties very very seriously in on this one. Yeah. Sort of everywhere our situation. Yeah. I feel like it's, it's difficult to talk about just because it is so much an essential part of the movie.

I mean that they are kids living on the, the fringes of society.

[01:00:31] Emily: Yeah. And they're in a, what we would consider a desperate situation, but they're still a certain amount of beauty depicted there. I think that has to do Less of idealizing this, the sort of urban exploration punk of the city and more of the kids doing the best with what they have.

Cuz I know like we talk about things like cyber punk, which R usually shows these kind of high population areas with a lot of DIY a lot of corrugated roof structures and things like that. But the situations, the kids don't seem terribly sad. I mean they still have a flat screen TV.

they've got what they would consider essential and they don't, yeah, they're

[01:01:14] Jeremy: hungry. I mean they still have from Caco's place cause they don't have that before, before they find dead.

[01:01:22] Ben: Yeah.

[01:01:22] Emily: I would assume that he had another one, because the one that he was watching was shot, like it was cracked.

So yeah, there's right after the gun went off, did that, or,

[01:01:34] Ben: I mean, it seemed to be a bit of an implication that they just wait for people to be taken and then just like raid their houses once they know they won't be there anymore. Yeah.

[01:01:45] Jeremy: Yeah. That's, that's how, you know, they, the group of them really meet Estrella is, is Shined as stealing stuff from her house.

Cuz you think she's gone?

[01:01:55] Emily: Yeah. Yeah. This movie's kind of intense. Y'all y'alls a lot going on in this

[01:01:59] Ben: movie. This movie's dealing with some heavy themes I think. Yeah.

[01:02:03] Jeremy: Yeah. It's real. It's real heavy. This is, this has been a month of heavy movies. Yeah, this one is definitely like real solid. And yeah, I, I, I look forward to seeing more stuff from from this director cuz Issa López is supposedly working on a wearable Western movie right now.

Ooh. Give me that. I want that. Yeah, for real.

[01:02:24] Ben: Yeah, for

[01:02:24] Emily: real also

[01:02:25] Eugenia: it seems she's working in true detectives season four, according to oh, news on match.

[01:02:31] Jeremy: Yeah. She I guess directed, I think the first episode of, of season four, true detective, but yeah, it's good for her. She deserves it. it looks like, you know, at least at least her and Tenoch Huerta are doing pretty well after this movie.

So hopefully they both got a lot more ahead of them. I, I guess that brings us to I feel like we've already answered this, but guys, do you recommend people check this movie out?

[01:02:54] Ben: Oh, absolutely.

[01:02:56] Emily: A million percent. This is

[01:02:58] Ben: a very, very good movie. I definitely watch this. Tigers Are Not Afraid. Good movie likes to do a title drop a little too much, but that's about my only criticism.

Or like the third title drop I'm like I get it. The name of the movie is Tigers Are Not Afraid.

[01:03:15] Emily: You, you wanna

[01:03:16] Eugenia: mention the origin title?

[01:03:19] Emily: Yes.

[01:03:20] Eugenia: In not sure why, but in Mexico is called Vuelven. They come back. The there's no mention about tigers in the title.

[01:03:29] Ben: That's so weird because tigers are a very big part of the movie.

[01:03:33] Emily: Yeah. And I love the

[01:03:34] Ben: title. That's crazy how often tigers are mentioned for them not to be in the title? Well, I think that in this, whoa, that just blew you just blew my mind.

[01:03:45] Emily: yeah. I saw that when the movie opened and I did look it up

[01:03:48] Ben: and Tigers Are Not Afraid is a better title.

[01:03:51] Emily: I mean, I like the title, the title more, but the.

[01:03:54] Jeremy: Yeah, and it's, it has a different title in French, too. Which, you know, I, I think is much closer to the Spanish title. Yes. Than Tigers Are Not Afraid. But yeah, I mean, I think he's not as afraid. It's a real good name for this, but

[01:04:07] Ben: yeah, it's so weird. Cause they, again, they say it like it's a title drop multiple times, right?

[01:04:14] Eugenia: Absolutely.

There's a weird thing about Titles of movie being changed in Mexico? I'm not sure. It's like I watch the movies, the horror movie. Mm-hmm according I was searching for one of those weird examples here is to hidden spirits.

[01:04:33] Emily: So,

[01:04:34] Jeremy: huh. The way still have a cover with a bunch of antlers on it. Yeah.

[01:04:38] Emily: Yes.

[01:04:39] Eugenia: There's a lot of examples about this kind of it's too weird or the Mexican public want understand it changes.

[01:04:48] Jeremy: Hmm. Interesting. Yeah. That's like, that reminds me of hellrazor and when we were watching that and how it's weirdly all dubbed over with American accents, when they're clearly in England,

[01:05:00] Ben: it's very weird.

I will never get over that.

[01:05:03] Jeremy: Yeah. Well on that from there on, I mean, obviously we all recommend it. Do we have anything to recommend people to check out Eugenia? Did you have a recommendation?

[01:05:10] Eugenia: Yes. If you want to feel even more depressing about Mexico I have, there is one movie called miss BK from 2011.

It's about woman who is interested about beta beauty patient and one horrible night and how she gets in in me in the, in a cartel, supposedly is based on a inspired, but a true story and just a little spoiler. That showed you why you should never trust policemen yes. Yeah, I have, when I, I saw the the children go to the police.

I was, no, I remember that movie. Can I, that would be, if you want to feel even more horror about Mexico.

[01:05:57] Emily: Sounds like a good movie. Yeah. This movie is really good, but it is depressing and we're, we're all about recommending depressing movies,

[01:06:06] Jeremy: so, oh yes. On that front, Emily, what movie? What depressing movie would you like to recommend?

[01:06:10] Emily: I was just gonna say Pan's labyrinth. This is this movie.

[01:06:14] Jeremy: This movie feels a lot like Pan's labyrinth. It's very good and very depressing.

[01:06:18] Emily: Yes. And you know, you have the fairytale element. I, this movie does not end the way that Pan's labyrinth does. Although I think that in terms of like the amount of depressing things happening, they kind of even out.

So yeah, I, I love this movie because it's kind of like Pan's labyrinth, but I feel like it's a lot more relatable because of the fact that it's more contemporary. Whereas Pan's labyrinth is a period piece. And there's a lot, there's a lot more fantasy in Pan's labyrinth and, I don't think I can really handle that amount of fantasy in anything that's about drug trafficking and human trafficking.

[01:06:54] Jeremy: like to point out they, they say they traffic drugs. We don't see drugs being trafficked at any point in this movie. Just

[01:07:00] Emily: humans. Yeah. Yeah. I think that there is a point where they mention that it was, is explicitly human trafficking. I, yeah, and I, I mean the satanic virtuals where they say that they cut people up and eat them, I think is a complete fabrication of these kids.

But selling, humans is not unheard of, usually not. They're sold in one piece, but anyway.

[01:07:21] Jeremy: Yeah. Ben, what about you? What depressing movie would you like to recommend?

[01:07:24] Ben: I'm gonna recommend a depressing TV show. Mm-hmm , I'm gonna recommend the wire specifically. Michael B.

Jordan storyline in season one. Oh,

[01:07:34] Emily: Watch anything with Michael B. Jordan in it

[01:07:36] Ben: though? Yeah, who's ready for more depressing kids, but like trapped in a life they never should have been in and can't escape and then dying tragically.

[01:07:45] Jeremy: I tried to get my wife to watch the wire with me. And the first episode that she tuned in for was the one where Michael B. Jordan gets killed. And she was like, I don't wanna see this show anymore. I was like, yeah, I can't really argue with that.

[01:07:58] Ben: Where Wallace at string where Wallace.

[01:08:01] Jeremy: Ugh, it's rough. That's a very good show. And that is a very hard episode. Oh yeah. Yeah, I wanted to recommend checking out the work of female Mexican director I've watched a few of her movies now Gigi, Sal Guerrero.

I don't other thing she does, she does love some real gory messed up horror stuff. Some of which I'm into some of which I'm not, but one that's really easy to find is if you have Hulu she did one of the movies for the, into the dark series. She did a movie called culture shock, which is pretty easy to find there, which is about is a horror movie about immigration as if it weren't horrible enough already.

And it's it's a really weird psychological horror movie about sort of all the horrible things that we put people trying to escape violence and immigrate through. And definitely worth checking out. But I think generally Gigi, Sal Guerrero's catalog is worth, checking out and, and seeing what she's up to.

Cuz she's got a lot of she's. She is a, a worker, she's got a lot of stuff under her belt. She's also an actress as well. So definitely check all that out. But culture shock is the, I think the easiest and quickest one to find. That's it, I think that wraps us up for this uh, Eugenia. Can you let people know where they can uh, find you online if they wanna contact you?

[01:09:15] Eugenia: If you wanna contact me and see all my questions in other podcast it's uh, @asimov_fangirl.

[01:09:23] Jeremy: Asimov underscore fan girl. Yeah. That's- that's where we met you on, on Twitter.

um,

[01:09:28] Eugenia: Yes.

[01:09:28] Jeremy: Yeah. As for the rest of us uh, you can find Emily at mega moth on Twitter and mega underscore moth on Instagram and at megamoth.net.

Ben is on Twitter. @BentheKahn the website is Ben Kahn comics, where you can pick up all of their all of their graphic novels. And finally, for me, you can find me on Twitter and Instagram at J Rome five eight. And on my website at jeremywhitley.com, where you can find out more about everything I write. And of course the podcast is on Patreon at Progressively Horrified on our website, Progressively Horrified.transistor.fm, and on Twitter prog horror pod, where we would love to hear from you.

And speaking of loving to hear from you, if you are enjoying this podcast, we would love it if you could go on whatever, you're listening to it on and go give us a review five stars as great 10 stars. If it will let you give that. As many stars as you can get, really. It's uh, helps us helps more people find our podcast when we're we're highly ranked and reviewed like that.

So we would really appreciate it. Um,

[01:10:20] Emily: 32 stars.

[01:10:21] Jeremy: 32 stars. As many stars as you can possibly get. Again, Eugenia. Thank you so much for joining us. This was uh, I wouldn't say the movie was fun, but it was fun talking about it with you.

[01:10:31] Emily: It was awesome talking about it. Thank you. Thank you.

Yes, thank you so much

[01:10:34] Ben: fun movie, but an excellent movie. Yes.

[01:10:37] Eugenia: Actually I have to thank you. I'm not really about watching horror movies, but your podcast inspire me to watch more. Also when I'm at work I can concentrate better. So at least I'm not being pursued by Pinhead or something like that.

[01:10:54] Emily: Yes. We have such sights to show you.

[01:10:59] Ben: I gotta say sometimes filing invoices feels like putting together the Lamette configuration, but no pinhead yet.

[01:11:08] Emily: Yeah. I, I am the Cinnamon Bun of Cenobites and I'll make sure that, which none of them else comes.

[01:11:12] Ben: Holy shit. Y'all am I excited for when we get to cover the new Hellraiser movie with trans Pinhead?

[01:11:18] Jeremy: Ooh. Oh. I'm excited. I hope.

[01:11:21] Ben: Oh, Emily, did you not know that they're remaking Hellraiser with a trans woman playing Pinhead?

[01:11:27] Emily: No!

[01:11:28] Ben: Yeah!

[01:11:29] Emily: Oh my God!

[01:11:30] Ben: Yeah!

[01:11:32] Jeremy: Yeah.

[01:11:33] Ben: So stay tuned for that. Y'all cause yeah know, there's no way we can't cover that.

[01:11:38] Jeremy: Yeah. And then next week we'll be talking about The Platform. So another very depressing movie. Come back for and enjoy that.

And uh, thank you as always for listening and until next time stay horrified.

[01:11:50] Alicia: Progressively horrified is created by Jeremy Whitley and produced by Alicia Whitley. This episode featured the horror squad, Jeremy Ben and Emily. And special guest Eugenia Pinzón. All opinions expressed by the commentators are solely their own and do not represent the intent or opinion of the filmmakers, nor do they represent the employers, institutions, or publishers of the commentators. Our theme music is epic darkness by MarioKohl06 and was provided royalty free from Pixabay. If you like this episode you can support us on patreon you can also get in touch with us on twitter at ProgHorrorPod or by email at progressivelyhorrified@gmail.com. Thanks for listening! Bye.