July is National Cell Phone Courtesy month. It’s an opportunity to learn the common courtesy of cell phone use that so many have forgotten or never learned, like not using speakerphone in public and talking in the face of a cashier. The cell phone is a great convenience but some of us have gotten so absorbed and rude while using them so instead read this blog and then watch Werewolves Within and put the fucking phone down.
Trailer
Questions
JON: How about a Mr. Rogers quote to start a horror movie?
SANDY: I thought that was absolutely awesome. I love how they played such ominous music along with it too, it totally changes the feeling of the quote. A Perfect Circle did a remake of John Lennon’s “Imagine”, and it gives me similar vibes. The original had a more hopeful hippie sort of feeling to it, while Maynard’s version (which I also love) seems very dark and totally void of all hope. The music they played along with the Mr. Rogers quote is perfect for how the people of this town behave towards each other. What’s another interesting cover that totally changed the feeling of the original song for you?
JON: That’s the hardest question you’ve ever asked. The first one that comes to mind is the Johnny Cash cover of Hurt. It totally changes the perspective and makes it more of an end of life statement of regret. Or . Fuck there are so many. Maybe when this is in audio form we can continue this. Is Finn screaming the sound of being a man?
SANDY: Hahahaha, I don’t know if it’s the sound of being a man, but I fucking loved it. Do you feel like chanting “balls” over and over again is the solution for a lack of self confidence? I thought the balls lady’s voice sounded a tiny bit like Betty White... HOW EXCITED WOULD YOU BE TO HEAR BETTY WHITE CHANTING “BALLS” OVER AND OVER AGAIN?!
JON: If chanting balls were the solution to low self confidence, I think you and I would be the most confident people in the world but I would only be moderately excited by Betty White chanting “Balls”. I’m more into kids cursing than old ladies. Could he drive slower?
SANDY: You are talking to someone with a history of driving too fast. According to NY State Troopers anyway. Based on Mosquito and this movie, do you think it’s a wise decision for anyone to take a new Park Ranger’s position in another town?
JON: Clearly not. Does a man who doesn’t want to conquer nature really not understand its brutality?
SANDY: I think a strong case can be made for the opposite. If you really understood the brutality & awesomeness of nature, you’d never try to “conquer” it because you’d understand it’s not possible to do so. A man who wants to conquer nature is just a fucking monster.
JON: Why is Mrs. Sherman carrying all Finn’s luggage?
SANDY: Haha, anything to get away from that gross fuckface Parker and his incessant mansplaining interruptions. Holy Hell, I hate that fucking guy. Janine looked like me whenever I go anywhere though. I’ve almost always got a purse and a backpack and a water jug and another bag of random shit as if I need to carry everything I own on me at all times. How many grocery bags can you carry at once to avoid multiple trips to and from the car?
JON: if it’s a long walk- all of them or at least 10 and 2-3 boxes. Do you hate when people abbreviate words unnecessarily like "gosp" and "mansh?" Because I sure do.
SANDY: Ugh, totes. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Seriously though, it used to annoy the fuck out of me until I had to spend time around someone who did it a lot at work. It’s still a bit obnoxious to the part of me that wants to remain a die-hard vocabulary rule-follower, but I’ve changed my overall outlook on it. It’s like a little word game... what the fuck is she trying to tell me? What was your favorite line in the movie? (Mine was “she had too much soda”.)
JON: “Baby, don't say Mexican standoff. Just say standoff.” I also enjoyed the repeated references to snowshoes. Everyone in this town is a bit fucked huh?
SANDY: Everyone in that town could have benefited tremendously from some serious psychotherapy. The people who were against the pipeline had their own issues, but I can’t recall any of them being an actual danger to others. Maybe a little rude sometimes but not physically violent. All of the people in the movie who were FOR the pipeline were extremely unpleasant, immoral and violent human beings. Janine’s husband was cheating on her, Trish was a fucking sociopath and a murderer, her husband was a cheater and a fucking predator, the mechanic chick was a liar and a cheater and clearly excited by everyone fighting with each other, Marcus was a moron who planned on stealing from everyone and framing the werewolf so he could get away with it, and Parker was the epitome of evil. So much greed and selfishness in that town! It’s the perfect representation of what’s been going on this country for quite a while.
JON: Did you want to set Trish on fire?
SANDY: I wasn’t sad when her big dumb head ended up in the fireplace and I very likely also would not have tried to pull her out had I been there. Fuck that gross twat. What do you think Chachi tasted like?
JON: Chachi tastes like Joannie with a hint of bullshit. Should Cecily have explicitly warned Finn how dangerous Flint is?
SANDY: Hey man, she tried. Finn was too busy with his ex on the phone to listen to her or notice the many, many, many actual real-life physical warning signs. Do you think Flint actually would have shot Finn if he hadn’t gotten off the porch by the end of the count?
JON: Probably. Flint is not a man who takes kindly to intrusions. Do you think Flint does anything legally?
SANDY: He... wears clothing. That’s something? I like the cut of his jib though. I flirt with some of that attitude myself. Minus the extreme animal murdering. In the end, he was a decent guy.
JON: Did you expect The AT&T actress to be so busty?
SANDY: Yes, there was actually some controversy about it not too long ago. Some pictures of her eons ago at a pool party appeared online somewhere and all sorts of gross assholes came out of the works making rude comments and saying terrible shit to her, to the point where she posted a tearful video about it and made a point of saying how uncomfortable she was with that attention. Even AT&T posted about the harassment she was receiving and disabled the comments section on their advertisements because of it.
JON: Do you want to go throw axes?
SANDY: YES!!!! I suck at it, but I’m going to try following Cecily’s advice next time. How many rotations did Cecily say were ideal for properly landing an axe into your target?!
JON: One. Wait, are those your Italian kissy fingers?
SANDY: YES!!!!
JON: Doesn’t a clawed generator deserve more than a “Heavens to Betsy”?
SANDY: Definitely. Aaaannndd I don’t understand how they later believed it could possibly have been done by a man with a tiny-ass knife like the one Finn found in Parker’s room.
JON: Is Dr. Ellis a wolf detective?
SANDY: She fucking should have been for how she figured that shit out. I imagine it would take a lot for a clearly autistic scientist to get herself to believe that werewolves were a real thing. “I’m going to find out what killed your dead husband.” Words of comfort?
JON: Not even a little but she’s a scientist. She’s finding a solution. It’s not her job to console. Finn can do that. How about now? Do you want to set Trish on fire now?
SANDY: I am not into actively setting anyone on fire. HOWEVER, I very much would have enjoyed strangling her with my bare hands. How would you have gotten rid of Trish... obviously with fire, but I want some creative specifics?
JON: Obviously I would deep-fry her head and turn it into a pinata. This is now my standard answer to that question. Parker is just trying to divide the whole town so he can destroy it with a pipeline right?
SANDY: Yes, it reminds me of someone who recently held a pretty highfalutin political office right here in the USA. DIVIDE AND CONQUER, right? Yuck.
JON: How many people do you think don’t know who Mr. Rogers was?
SANDY: Only people with very sad or isolated childhoods. Do you think Flint was born and raised in that cabin and never had a television or access to other human rings growing up?
JON: He was almost definitely raised by wolves. Is Flint really that scary? He just seems like a guy who wants to be left alone.
SANDY: I was not afraid of him at all. I’m not a fan of the hunting aspect, but all in all he seemed like an okay guy. Definitely wanted to be left alone, which is also how I feel most of the time.
JON: Eat our asses and fuck our skulls?
SANDY: No, thank you.
JON: If you were a werewolf, who would you eat first?
SANDY: I would have gone after Parker first, then Trish and her husband, then those two fucking morons just to take them out of the gene pool. I think as a man it might be hard for you to appreciate this to the same level as I do, so maybe ask Alison how amazing she felt when Cecily described the reason she bit off Trish’s stupid husband’s hand?
JON: Oh no I completely understood why she ate that asshole’s hand. He was a grabby possibly rapey fuck but I would have taken Flint out first. He was the most dangerous. Who did you think the werewolf was?
SANDY: At first I thought it might be Flint, then I thought maybe it really was Finn, or even Janine for a twist. But I was (to quote the great Janine) GOBSMACKED when the truth was revealed! Guillermo (Joaquim) had it right once he realized that Cecily was the 7th born child, if only Parker hadn’t shot him! The actor who plays Joaquim plays Guillermo in the series “What We Do In The Shadows” and I will never be able to stop thinking of him as being Guillermo. Who did you think was the werewolf the first time you watched the movie?
JON: For most of the movie, I thought it was Parker even though I figured that was too easy. I anticipated a swerve but not the one they gave. Is it ever comforting when the scientist says her results aren’t possible?
SANDY: I’m sure there are scenarios when that may feel comforting, but when you’re trying to figure out what animal has been viciously mauling and murdering all of the townsfolk, no.
JON: Parker is a liar. Dr. Ellis didn’t kill herself did she?
SANDY: I was pretty sure I saw a bullet hole through the flask that she had taken from Parker, AND THERE WERE TWO GUNSHOTS. It’s highly unlikely that she’d have shot herself TWICE.
JON: Gun safety is not much of a thing in this movie is it?
SANDY: The scene where they all started pulling their guns out was pretty hilarious though. The whole movie was great. I thought the acting was top notch all around and the characters were interesting and fun to watch.
JON: The werewolf just became a way for these people to settle their silly beefs huh?
SANDY: Some of them definitely took advantage of the chaos caused by the werewolf attacks. Like Marcus taping knives to his hand so he could rob people and pretend it was the wolf, or Trish going on her self-serving murder spree.
JON: Who did you never believe was the werewolf?
SANDY: I tried to imagine every person as a possibility at one point, but I was definitely surprised by it being Cecily. As Joaquim hilariously noted, how disappointed would you have been if Marcus had been the werewolf?
JON: I would have been pretty disappointed. Marcus was such a secondary character that it wouldn't have resonated at all. I never thought it was Janine or Finn. Janine was too broken up over her husband to have killed him and Finn was almost as easy as Flint.
SANDY: How long had Cecily been hanging around in town? It seemed like everyone knew her and she’d been there for a while, but it also seemed like the entire plan was to trap everyone and eat them.
JON: I feel like they established that she had been there for about a month. She couldn’t have been there long since she had basically replaced Janine’s husband as the mailPERSON.
SANDY: Would Cecily ever have eaten Janine?
JON: Oh definitely. When Cecily transforms she’ll eat anyone. I doubt she even has control over it.
SANDY: Is it ever acceptable to answer the phone in the middle of a romantic moment?
JON: In general, no. This is a cell phone courtesy issue. If someone is willing to be romantic with you, put the fucking phone away. If you can’t just leave it alone, put it far away, turn it off and don’t let it ruin your moment.
Lessons
A park ranger is not a sheriff, Don’t expect him to investigate crimes in town. Let him take care of the park.
Don’t answer the phone when someone wants to kiss you. The phone should never cock block you. REAL LIFE IS BETTER THAN PHONE LIFE.
Try to work together in times of crisis. United you have a chance to overcome the... oh fuck who am I kidding? We can’t do that.
Don’t go into the woods if there’s a werewolf around. Do you need this lesson? I hope not but just in case, the werewolf is probably in the woods and it’s much quicker than you and knows the woods better.
Don’t put your hand on a woman’s lower back to guide her somewhere or in any unwanted fashion. She doesn’t want your dirty hands on her unless she asked, otherwise she might bite that shit off.
6. Snowshoes are very important. Kind of a limited use lesson. Snowshoes aren’t important in July but if you’re out in the woods in the snow, you will probably want them.
