Episode 406: DRAG ME TO HELL (2009)

Andrzej Wajda’s first movie was criticized for deifying communism, so his follow-up, KANAŁ, is anything but heroic. Resistance fighters in 1944 Warsaw are forced underground to outmaneuver the Nazi sweeps reducing their city to dust. But the danger they’re escaping from is matched pound for pound, or more, by the horrendous conditions and stress of surviving the crumbling sewers. References: “Kanał and The Odyssey: The Power of Time and Sound” by Zach Staads for Perisphere, the Trylon blog: https://www.perisphere.org/2026/11/01/kanal-and-the-odyssey-the-power-of-time-and-sound/ “Ingestion: Andrzej Wajda’s Kanał and the Dissolution of the Warsaw Insurgency” by Victoria Breshears for Perisphere, the Trylon blog: https://www.perisphere.org/2026/11/01/ingestion-andrzej-wajdas-kanal-and-the-dissolution-of-the-warsaw-insurgency/ Check the calendar, preview upcoming series, and buy tickets at https://www.trylon.org/ Contribute to Perisphere, the Trylon blog, at https://www.perisphere.org/perisphere-blog-post-guidelines/ Follow us on Twitter at @trylovepodcast, Bluesky at @trylovepodca.st, and email us at [email protected] to get in touch! #AndrzejWajdaCentennial #DCP Show art by Emily Csuy. Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Outro music from that one scene in KANAŁ. Timestamps 0:00 - Episode 409: KANAŁ (1957) 2:06 - Wajda Watch This Week? 18:23 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary 22:57 - The kaleidoscope of humanity portrayed here 31:15 - The ignominious ways in which these people die 51:12 - The gritty realism 54:46 - The shift toward fantastical form 1:03:07 - The ending’s criticism of… all of the above 1:08:49 - The Junk Drawer 1:11:28 - Cody’s Noteys: Kommon KANAŁedge (collaborative Criterion spine number trivia)

Teens are horny for Oliver Reed. Read that again. In 2026, young people are positively insatiable with thirst for the deceased actor and icon of Lad culture Oliver Reed. And it’s all thanks to a new rerelease of Ken Russell’s THE DEVILS. To celebrate the frankly crazy reception it’s had on its release by Warner Bros. Clockwork, Lauren Haun is back in the habit (literally) to remark on the content, characters, crows, and locations featured in THE DEVILS. Find Lauren… On Instagram at @alphabetcookiee On the Trylove episode about Y TU MAMÁ TAMBIÉN (2001) At the Trylon! References: “Restoration as Worship: The Everlasting Terror of Ken Russell’s The Devils” by Chris Polley for Perisphere, the Trylon blog: https://www.perisphere.org/2026/10/25/restoration-as-worship-the-everlasting-terror-of-ken-russells-the-devils/ “Ken Russell’s The Devils: Cinema at the Mercy of the Censors” by Dan Howard for Perisphere, the Trylon blog: https://www.perisphere.org/2026/10/24/ken-russells-the-devils-cinema-at-the-mercy-of-the-censors/ Check the calendar, preview upcoming series, and buy tickets at https://www.trylon.org/ Contribute to Perisphere, the Trylon blog, at https://www.perisphere.org/perisphere-blog-post-guidelines/ Follow us on Twitter at @trylovepodcast, Bluesky at @trylovepodca.st, and email us at [email protected] to get in touch! #EvilIncantations #4K  Show art by Emily Csuy. Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Outro music: "Execution" composed by Peter Maxwell Davies and performed by Fires of London from the THE DEVILS soundtrack. Timestamps 0:00 - Episode 408: THE DEVILS (1971) with Lauren Haun 5:36 - Whadja Watch This Week? 20:14 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary 24:44 - Approaching THE DEVILS in 2026 29:37 - It’s actually not quite as explicit as you’d expect 43:31 - Sister Jeanne and the women of THE DEVILS 47:09 - Grandier as a convenient excuse for the Church to clamp down 48:57 - Sister Jeanne and her hump 51:35 - Derek Jarman’s jaw-dropping sets and the sacred/profane of Loudun 1:03:57 - Father Pierre Barre, the “witch-hunter” 1:07:00 - The crowd as character 1:13:57 - The Junk Drawer 1:20:43 - Cody’s Noteys: The Devil’s in the Details (guessing horror movies by their VHS box synopses)

VIY is a cult classic inspired by Ukrainian folktale, dubbed “the Soviet Union’s first horror film,” and it’s full of exactly the kind of wild, awe-inspiring creativity you’d expect of a moral tale from behind the Iron Curtain! On this episode, we gush over VIY’s vibrant final act like everybody always does, but we also dig into what makes the slow start special. Long story short: It’s PROBABLY got something more running under the surface than coffin-surfin’ witches and vodka-drunk villagers. Stick around for Cody’s Noteys, where the rest of us end up drinking too much booze in order to survive the night… like any good Cossack! References: VIY (1967) by Benjamin Desbois for Perisphere, the Trylon blog: https://www.perisphere.org/2026/10/16/viy-1967/ Check the calendar, preview upcoming series, and buy tickets at https://www.trylon.org/ Contribute to Perisphere, the Trylon blog, at https://www.perisphere.org/perisphere-blog-post-guidelines/ Follow us on Twitter at @trylovepodcast, Bluesky at @trylovepodca.st, and email us at [email protected] to get in touch! #EvilIncantations #DCP  Show art by Emily Csuy. Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Outro music is a jaunty tune played on the sopilka (cопiлка), the performance of which was portrayed by uncredited actor Sergey Vanyashkin in VIY. Timestamps 0:00 - Episode 407: VIY (1967) 5:22 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary 7:58 - The pacing 17:00 - A defense of the slower middle act 26:04 - Sympathy for Khoma Brutus 51:31 - That’s the MF Viy 56:41 - When does Khoma Brutus actually lose his faith? 1:06:03 - The Junk Drawer 1:13:27 - Cody’s Noteys: Three Nights in Trylove Chapel (a dice roll-based adventure through the plot of VIY)

Sam Raimi got done with SPIDER-MAN 3 (2007) and was like ‘time to make the meanest movie possible’. On this episode, we’re dragging the absolute living DISCUSSION out of each other about DRAG ME TO HELL: The fear of a millennial workforce, Alison Lohman doing her thing, and whether or not Christine ‘deserves’ what she gets (including one of the most talked-about endings in horror). Then, we’re finally succumbing to social pressure and talking about Taco Bell in Cody’s Noteys. References: Check the calendar, preview upcoming series, and buy tickets at https://www.trylon.org/ Contribute to Perisphere, the Trylon blog, at https://www.perisphere.org/perisphere-blog-post-guidelines/ Follow us on Twitter at @trylovepodcast, Bluesky at @trylovepodca.st, and email us at [email protected] to get in touch! #EvilIncantations #35mm  Show art by Emily Csuy. Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Outro music: “Drag Me to Hell” composed and conducted by Christopher Young from the DRAG ME TO HELL soundtrack.

In the early 2000s, Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer were among the first to bridge the gap from late night sketch comedy to internet virality. POPSTAR: NEVER STOP NEVER STOPPING is kind of a culmination of that journey and the jewel in that crown. POPSTAR is both powered by the “SNL Digital Shorts”ification of comedy and chained to it. Its ratatat jokes, absurd gags, and 2016-ness have earned POPSTAR certified cult classic status. It’s also a product of pre-Trump American cinema (Harry calls it “the last Obama movie”), so there’s a foreign, almost naïve optimism to it. The largely unburdened storytelling we used to take for granted just a decade ago. The kind of playful, surprisingly genuine sentiment that feels like an exception now, in a world where every day is dominated by some new world-shaking terror. In this episode, we’re looking at POPSTAR as a defining cultural document of the 2010s, a product of the optimistic internet age, as a star-studded showcase, and as a collection of some really fucking funny gags. Thanks to our good friend Kyle for joking that we should cover this movie. References: Check the calendar, preview upcoming series, and buy tickets at https://www.trylon.org/ Contribute to Perisphere, the Trylon blog, at https://www.perisphere.org/perisphere-blog-post-guidelines/ Follow us on Twitter at @trylovepodcast, Bluesky at @trylovepodca.st, and email us at [email protected] to get in touch! ##SoundUnseenMonthly Show art by Emily Csuy. Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Outro music: “Finest Girl (Bin Laden Song)” by The Lonely Island from the POPSTAR: NEVER STOP NEVER STOPPING soundtrack. Timestamps 0:00 - Episode 405: POPSTAR: NEVER STOP NEVER STOPPING (2016) 3:44 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary (under exclusive license from AG Enterprises, Ltd.) 5:58 - POPSTAR as a legitimate cultural document of 2016 17:09 - The impact of SNL Digital Shorts 38:35 - NIRVANNA THE BAND THE SHOW THE MOVIE (2025) and the sweetness of the third act 48:15 - The structure of the movie 58:26 - Our favorite bits 1:07:05 - The Junk Drawer 1:11:26 - Cody’s Noteys: Pop or Star? (guessing whether a name belongs to a soda or an celestial object)

When Warner Bros. released James Wan’s THE CONJURING, audiences ate up its pared-down setting and classic jump scares to the tune of more than $300 million. As of this episode, it’s the highest-grossing horror franchise of all time. But hey, it’s a horror movie from the 2010s. It can’t actually be THAT good anymore, right? Dan Nagan comes back to help us pick and poke at what still works here, what definitely doesn’t, and the forgiving hand with which it treats the cute fraudsters at the heart of its story. Find Dan… On Bluesky at @adapperdanman.bsky.social On Letterboxd at @aDapperDanMan On Trylove episodes about RONIN (1981), FACE/OFF (1997), MANDY (2018), EDGE OF TOMORROW (2013), GOODFELLAS (1994), BARBARIAN (2022), DEMOLITION MAN (1993), HEAVENLY BODIES (1984), THE WICKER MAN (1973), MICHAEL CLAYTON (2007) On Stoop Kidz! A Hey Arnold! Podcast References: “Our Invisible Roommates: What The Conjuring Gets Right and Wrong About Living in A Haunted House” by Wil McMillen for Perisphere, the Trylon blog: https://www.perisphere.org/2026/10/04/our-invisible-roommates-what-the-conjuring-gets-right-and-wrong-about-living-in-a-haunted-house/ Check the calendar, preview upcoming series, and buy tickets at https://www.trylon.org/ Contribute to Perisphere, the Trylon blog, at https://www.perisphere.org/perisphere-blog-post-guidelines/ Follow us on Twitter at @trylovepodcast, Bluesky at @trylovepodca.st, and email us at [email protected] to get in touch! #EvilIncantations #35mm Show art by Emily Csuy. Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Outro music: “In the Room Where You Sleep” by Dead Man’s Bones as heard in the THE CONJURING soundtrack.

SUSPIRIA is cooking — A BIG CAULDRON OF INNOCENT BALLET GIRLS, that is! You’ve never seen anything like Dario Argento’s 1977 giallo classic… and yet, it’s so immediately evocative that Luca Guadagnino’s 2018 spiritual remake had no choice but to go a different direction with its visuals. You simply can’t outdo what SUSPIRIA is doing! With Velma Rent, Trylon board member and longtime volunteer, we’re hopping into the razor wire pile that is this movie’s legacy (without looking)! We get into the feminism, the Roman Empire, the inimitable style, Jessica Harper’s ‘made-for-horror’ expressivity, and more. Turns out there’s a VERY GOOD REASON why they’re all talking like that! Find Velma… On Letterboxd at https://letterboxd.com/jokerslaughter/ On Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/jokerslaughter/ References: “Suspiria’s Score is One of Horror’s Scariest Characters” by Lucille Hanson for Perisphere, the Trylon blog: https://www.perisphere.org/2026/09/27/suspirias-score-is-one-of-horrors-scariest-characters/ “Dario Argento on His Macabre Masterpiece, Suspiria” by Ben Cobb for Another Man Magazine (March 2018): https://www.anothermanmag.com/life-culture/10256/dario-argento-on-his-macabre-masterpiece-suspiria Check the calendar, preview upcoming series, and buy tickets at https://www.trylon.org/ Contribute to Perisphere, the Trylon blog, at https://www.perisphere.org/perisphere-blog-post-guidelines/ Follow us on Twitter at @trylovepodcast, Bluesky at @trylovepodca.st, and email us at [email protected] to get in touch! #EvilIncantations #DCP Show art by Emily Csuy. Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Outro music: “Main Theme” by Goblin from the SUSPIRIA soundtrack. Timestamps 0:00 - Episode 403: SUSPIRIA (1977) with Velma Rent 2:45 - Whadja Watch This Week? 28:00 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary 29:15 - The dreamlike storybook quality 43:42 - Suzy and the rich tradition of making women fit certain archetypes 52:39 - The Roman Empire and cultures that stratify on top of one another 59:40 - Coming of age, casting children, and shaping women’s bodies 1:09:30 - The overwhelming visuals 1:16:46 - The maddening soundtrack 1:22:15 - Who if anyone “deserves” their fate 1:38:27 - The Junk Drawer 1:46:39 - Cody’s Noteys: Goblove (goblin trivia)

“Foolhardy.” That’s how director Chantal Akerman described her 1974 film JE TU IL ELLE, which she also wrote and starred in. Her partially autobiographical character drifts at an emotional distance from herself, rearranging her room and binge eating and drafting letters to lost love, for the first 30 minutes. On paper, it sounds pretty flat. Those extended scenes of mundanity are punctuated by listless narration and a couple precious human interactions. Her hookup with a random trucker and her return to a former lover give the story structure, but they also give us a window into the young woman’s emotional state that her own voiceover narration tends to elide. For a couple of us, JE TU IL ELLE (“I, YOU, HE, SHE”) is the first time we’ve discussed Akerman. It’s as exploratory and halting and caveat-ridden as you’d imagine, but honestly, on this episode of Trylove, these four straight white guys talk not completely stupidly about this groundbreaking work of queer feminist filmmaking. References: “Impulsive Desires and Getting Personal” by Lucille Hanson for Perisphere, the Trylon blog: https://www.perisphere.org/2026/09/20/impulsive-desires-and-getting-personal/ “Down, Out, & Paradise: Chantal Akerman’s Tricky Triptych Je Tu Il Elle ” by Chris Polley for Perisphere, the Trylon blog: https://www.perisphere.org/2026/09/20/down-out-paradise-chantal-akermans-tricky-triptych-je-tu-il-elle/ “Je tu il elle” by Tamara Tracz for Senses of Cinema (May 2013): https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2013/cteq/je-tu-il-elle/ “Chantal Akerman: The Pajama Interview” by Nicole Brenez for Lola Journal (2011): http://www.lolajournal.com/2/pajama.html Check the calendar, preview upcoming series, and buy tickets at https://www.trylon.org/ Contribute to Perisphere, the Trylon blog, at https://www.perisphere.org/perisphere-blog-post-guidelines/ Follow us on Twitter at @trylovepodcast, Bluesky at @trylovepodca.st, and email us at [email protected] to get in touch! #TakingTheScenicRoute #DCP Show art by Emily Csuy. Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Outro music: "Nous n'irons plus au bois" as heard in JE TU IL ELLE. Timestamps 0:00 - Episode 402: JE TU IL ELLE (1974) 2:38 - Whadja Watch This Week? 22:44 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary 25:24 - Chantal Akerman and the first act of the movie 35:10 - The “superstructure” and how the acts fit together 44:57 - Mundanity and distortions of modern home life 55:05 - Virginia Woolf and distance from yourself 1:01:12 - Is it worth asking “why” things happen in this movie? 1:08:58 - The final act sex scene 1:24:15 - The Junk Drawer 1:28:19 - Cody’s Noteys: Co Dy’s No Teys  (collaborative competitive games)

The wistful, self-aware reflections highlighted in movies like THE LONG DAY CLOSES earned Terence Davies the unique moniker of ‘cinematic poet’. He grew up Catholic, discovered his queerness young, and came of age during British postwar austerity, but it’s not so much about his upbringing as it is about his recollection of his upbringing. It makes sense when you watch it. Abbie Phelps designed the delightful poster that promoted a short Terence Davies series at the Trylon, and she also happens to love this movie, so we’ve welcomed her back to the show to dig into what makes it special, what ‘cinematic poetry’ actually means, the power of music in communicating memory, and what people misunderstand about THE LONG DAY CLOSES! Find Abbie… On Bluesky at https://bsky.app/abbiememorydoll.bsky.social On Letterboxd at https://letterboxd.com/goodhunterabbie/ On Trylove episodes about DRIVE ANGRY (2011), WAR OF THE WORLDS (2005), THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999), TOUCH OF EVIL (1958), THE TRAIN (1964), MOULIN ROUGE! (2001), PHANTOM THREAD (2017), STAR WARS (1977) (with Natalie Marlin), THE INSIDER (1999) References: Buy the poster Abbie designed for “Terence Davies, Cinema’s Greatest Poet” at the Trylon (Sept. 2026): https://ko-fi.com/s/a9b4005fd4 “Mark Kermode on… the revered British director Terence Davies: ‘He had to fight to get every film made’” (Nov. 2023) https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/nov/04/mark-kermode-on-the-revered-british-director-terence-davies-he-had-to-fight-to-get-every-film-made-distant-voices-still-lives-benediction-the-long-day-closes “Coming of Age in Pittsburgh: To Fashion a Text” by Annie Dillard (The Wilson Quarterly Volume 12, Issue 1 Winter 1988) https://wilsonquarterly-legacy-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com/full-issues/new-year-1.pdf “Hopes For Paradise: Terrence Davies and The Long Day Closes” by Rich Woodall for The Quietus (May 2022): https://thequietus.com/culture/film/film-terrence-davies-long-day-closes-30-anniversary/ Check the calendar, preview upcoming series, and buy tickets at https://www.trylon.org/ Contribute to Perisphere, the Trylon blog, at https://www.perisphere.org/perisphere-blog-post-guidelines/ Follow us on Twitter at @trylovepodcast, Bluesky at @trylovepodca.st, and email us at [email protected] to get in touch! #TerenceDaviesCinemasGreatestPoet #DCP Show art by Emily Csuy. Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Outro music: "Tammy" written by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans, orchestrated by Joseph Gershenson, and sung by Debbie Reynolds as heard on the THE LONG DAY CLOSES soundtrack. Timestamps 0:00 - Episode 401: THE LONG DAY CLOSES (1992) with Abbie Phelps 2:26 - A question about Halloween 5:34 - Whadja Watch This Week? 28:05 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary (under exclusive license from AG Enterprises, Ltd.) 29:28 - Abbie’s poster for the Trylon’s Terence Davies series 33:29 - Terence Davies, an all-too-brief and all-too-shallow overview 36:17 - What ‘cinematic poetry’ and ‘pure cinema’ mean in relation to Terence Davies 39:44 - A journey through time, space, and memory 46:40 - The memories you find yourself drifting to 51:50 - What most people get wrong about THE LONG DAY CLOSES 58:48 - How Davies layers recollection and reflection on screen 1:03:06 - The “vivid” decay of memory 1:12:18 - Davies’s use of music in this part of his oeuvre 1:22:07 - A phantom of World War II 1:30:19 - The “Tammy” scene 1:35:09 - The Junk Drawer 1:43:52 - Cody’s Noteys: A Noteys Sampler Platter (multiple themes/types of Q\&A trivia)

Seven years, eight months, and eight days ago, we published the first episode of Trylove. It was about François Truffaut’s THE 400 BLOWS (1959), the critic-turned-director’s debut film and a monument of the French New Wave. We joked about doing it again for episode 400 of the show. Well, References: Trylove Episode 1: THE 400 BLOWS (1959) Check the calendar, preview upcoming series, and buy tickets at https://www.trylon.org/ Contribute to Perisphere, the Trylon blog, at https://www.perisphere.org/perisphere-blog-post-guidelines/ Follow us on Twitter at @trylovepodcast, Bluesky at @trylovepodca.st, and email us at [email protected] to get in touch! Show art by Emily Csuy. Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Outro music: “Les 400 Coups (Version Instrumentale)” by Jean Constantin from the THE 400 BLOWS soundtrack. Timestamps 0:00 - Episode 400: THE 400th EPISODE (2026) 2:01 - Whadja Watch This Week? 21:29 - Favorite memories from 400 episodes 45:11 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary 48:07 - Motion City Soundtrack and the Trylove lore behind THE 400 BLOWS 59:34 - The assumptions you make about Antoine in the absence of explanation 1:10:49 - Why Jason doesn’t like THE 400 BLOWS 1:20:08 - René, the other kids, the parents, and the world around Antoine 1:39:07 - Reconciling Antoine with Truffaut 1:49:41 - Antoine's struggle against systems of power 1:54:58 - What Truffaut turned Antoine into in later movies 2:13:47 - To All the Loves We’ve Tried Before: 1959 2:15:34 - Cody’s Noteys: Gratin Tomatoes (darts rules but with RottenTomatoes scores)