THE WAVES OF MADNESS

Mike: 00:00:29

Welcome to Box Office Pulp, your one stop podcast for movies, madness and moxie. I'm your great old host, Mike, joined by my indescribable co host, Jamie.

Jamie: 00:00:38

I think it's within our a reasonable range of expectation to just assume that one of us out of the two will be lost at sea.

Mike: 00:00:47

Honestly, it's kind of my dream to be lost at sea. And I'm not even really that joking when I say that I'm very comforted by things involving people lost at sea.

Jamie: 00:00:56

Well, it has as long as I known you been your dream to leave behind a terrifying mystery.

Mike: 00:01:02

Actually, you know what would be fun for me, for me to do to take one of those like around the world yachting races and disappear in the course of that. I think that would be, that would be, that would be good.

Jamie: 00:01:14

Long as they never find you. The race is always in session. That's the magic of it.

Mike: 00:01:19

There's that episode of Survivor man where he's lost at sea. And I watch that episode sometimes for comfort because it seems really fun to me.

You know, the same way people watch roller coaster videos and like, oh, that's great. I would love to. I'd love to be doing that right now. That's how I feel about him dying in the ocean slowly.

Jamie: 00:01:37

I'm just imagining you in the movie theater watching all is Lost while laughing and smoking a cigar like, Max, Katie, this guy's got the life.

Mike: 00:01:47

The lonely death of Robert Redford at sea. But speaking of being lost at sea, today is a mini bop that will be kept fairly spoiler free.

We'll do our best for Jason Trott's Waves of Madness, which is hitting blu Ray on June 4th in both a regular edition and collector's edition from Umbrella Entertainment. But you can currently run it on Google Play and Apple.

This was an indiegogo project and you may recognize Trost's name from the fp, All Superheroes Must Die and the like. So with the filmography like that, you know there's going to be something special and different with the film that we're talking about today.

And that is the fact it's the world's first side scrolling film. And I like how it's worded that way, as if that's just a thing that's going to happen from now on, as it should Honestly.

But it sounds weird first time you hear it.

But if you want to stop and watch the trailer, if you're not aware of this film previously, watching the trailer will begin to make things make some vague sense. Honestly, because I was very confused by it the first time I heard it.

I was excited the second I heard about it because I came across it a few weeks ago and we immediately watched it that night and yeah, wow. I was, I was all in on this thing pretty much immediately.

Jamie: 00:03:00

I think about about halfway through we were going this is going to be a bop, right?

Mike: 00:03:03

100%. So I didn't know how it was going to work going in.

We watched the trailer and it seemed like a really bonkers, the film like Man Borg and Biocop and stuff like that kind of came to mind for me.

Jamie: 00:03:17

It see it seemed on the nose campy, which we do enjoy. So that wasn't a turn off or anything.

And this is my first Jason Trost movie but I do know of his work by reputation is very all over the place tone wise.

So I, yeah, I wasn't really sure like is this going to be something that will be enjoyable for a little while and then kind of get old like a YouTube video that goes on for too long and God, I, I was pleasantly surprised by how immediately engaging this is.

Mike: 00:03:49

Yeah, the trailer actually I would argue doesn't really do it justice because it does look very tongue in cheek and not to say the film isn't, but I wasn't expecting how legit the film was because it, it is very much inspired by side scrolling video games. And you can tell, you know, a lot of, a lot of what trust does is video game inspired or part of that culture.

But it's also very old movie, you know, old monster movie inspired by way of side scrolling video game.

Jamie: 00:04:17

It feels like you're watching a dramatization of a lost Capcom game from the PlayStation 1 era that just happened to be their take on an H.P. lovecraft story.

Mike: 00:04:31

Yeah. And I think you called it while we were watching it, which is, you know, we were expecting like super video game coded stuff and it. And it is.

But we were expecting it in like the classical sense like oh, it's a classic side scrolling video game. This felt more like prestige indie triple a side scroller game that is supposed to hearken back to old games.

Jamie: 00:04:51

Yeah, it kind of had the vibe of something like Oxenfree, like a point and click thing that's very, that's very much like in, in the style of an older game but with A lot of modern sensibilities, which really threw me for a loop because again, I was just kind of expecting a parody. But this does take itself surprisingly seriously and it does tell a sincere story outside of, you know, this framework of a video game convention.

Mike: 00:05:16

Yeah. And for that, it's actually a very legitimate H.P. lovecraft story.

Jamie: 00:05:21

It deals with grief and madness very.

Mike: 00:05:24

Much and also like the thin line between reality and imagination and how sometimes that line doesn't matter. It's very interesting. There's all. There's actually a lot of stuff to pull from that you can enjoy.

Completely detached from the, you know, classic sort of black and white Lovecraft stuff and divorced from the video game stuff and purely like as a through line, emotional through line. Not to say like the video game stuff is not. It's not overbearing, but it's there.

And a lot of it you can pick up on, you know, like a button flashing so you know, to go over there to click on it and kind of very subtle movement stuff like how the characters in the film move.

Jamie: 00:06:07

In particular, Tally Wickham's performance as Francis is outstanding. I've never seen like PlayStation 1 era Polygon acting and an almost Japanese American actor directed by a Japanese crew voice acting, kind of vocals.

Again, it's very endearing.

Mike: 00:06:30

Endearing is the way to put it because it doesn't take. It doesn't take you out, which is what I was expecting. Like.

Oh, when I thought it was going to be this tongue in cheek thing, I thought like, oh, it's going to be like really like overwhelming dialogue. People move weird. There's going to be like a lot of video game type crap in there to like, will be fun.

But that's what, that's what the point of the film is. The, the way the dialogue and way it's delivered is still very subtle except like one NPC character they run into who.

Who is allowed to be a little bit more exaggerated and like how they talk move purely because they're only on screen for a very brief time. While the main characters are very Capcom dialogue coded in a. In a very like nicely subtle way while still having like an air of austere and like.

It's not purely just stupid.

Jamie: 00:07:15

Yeah. It feel. It feels sincere. Not like a parody. Like. No, no. This would actually be what would be in this game that was probably made by talented people.

Mike: 00:07:24

Yeah.

Jamie: 00:07:25

And then maybe like something got lost in translation that made it a little clunkier than it. Than it was intended. Particularly. I, I loved the incidental.

We have to Fill dead air conversations between the two characters as they pass between levels. Which by the way, just think little, little touches like music fading out just a little bit too fast as if there's a loading screen being passed by.

Things like that. Yeah. Which are. Are subtle. And if you didn't catch those as video game references wouldn't take you out of the movie necessarily. You could.

You could show this to somebody who is very young and doesn't have any familiarity with that level of that era of gaming and they would just read this as just a weird art movie.

Mike: 00:08:09

Yeah. You don't have to. You don't. You can completely ignore the video game coding of it.

Because even I like, I'm not going to go into spoilers, obviously, because the film's not even officially out yet as far as being on physical. But there is a moment in the film where the animation cycle of an enemy is very important.

If you know video game storytelling and, and game mechanics, you recognize that's what's happening is they are utilizing the animation cycle of an enemy because that's what the level is designed to do is you have to go around the enemy in this particular way. You can. You can totally watch it completely ignoring that fact. Like it doesn't necessarily affect it, it adds to it. But it's me.

But it's because the way the storytelling is weaved into it, it feels very natural and it still comes back to like a character place with it and how the plan is. Is divulged and put together. So it works on both those angles. Like you can watch it as a video game fan.

You get a little bit tickled the fact that, oh my God, there's a plot point in this movie that involves the animation cycle of. Of an enemy character. Or you can just watch it as.

It's really interesting how this movie's being shot where you can like watch these characters like move in the background while this action's happening in the foreground. Just because it's being filmed like it's a side scroller.

Jamie: 00:09:26

Oh God. And speaking of things they encounter in this movie, I know you can definitely see a little bit of them in the trailer.

The monster design in this movie is really cool and is a very original take on the at this point quite cliche tentacle man trope that we see in anything that comes anywhere near Lovecraft. It reminded me a lot of the side scroller inside side, that very uncanny, squirmy, reachy, indefinable mast. A kind of monster design that's so.

Mike: 00:10:02

Unsettling and once again going back to that, there is also an element of the enemy of the enemies that have that really cool design where there's kind of two looks for them because there is a shield elements that you have to knock down before you can defeat them. And it's not even something the movie stops to explain. It's like a video game. It's completely environmental. You, you pick up on it.

But it's just like that subtle thing like how would a game mechanic, like if you know game mechanics in and out and you play them a lot, you're used to how they're integrated into a story and if you decide to pick them apart and how do I take a game mechanic and integrate it as a part of a movie story without it just being a mechanic? And I think that's really interesting.

It actually shows like a really interesting way that game mechanics has evolved in the medium to being a normal part of storytelling in a, in a very.

Jamie: 00:10:52

Invisible way about how novelistic conventions and conventions of the stage are still intentionally imitated in movies to this day. I mean this could be very commonplace 20 years from now. Just, oh, it's just a perfectly normal wrinkle.

This thing has video game storytelling conventions. I just one more layer on here and it's not something that's seen as explicitly incongruous. Yeah, like no, no, no.

More no weirder than just having chapter titles in a movie.

Mike: 00:11:22

Moving, moving away just a little bit from like the video game mechanics. One, one aspect that did surprise me is I mean the film's short to be fair, you know, full disclosure, it's like an hour long.

I think it's like fully, maybe an hour and eight minutes. I want to say long credits, long credits, but also long after credit scene. So that balances it out.

But the side scrolling filming style and it's done completely on green screen.

I'm looking forward to getting the Blu ray just to see hopefully some behind the scenes stuff because I'd love, I would love if they released like the full green screen cut of just I assume them walking on treadmills or something. I have no idea how they film some of that, but it doesn't get tiresome visually. Despite the fact it is like most side scrolling video games.

It's like the background changes very much.

They do go to a couple different environments in the cruise ship and they're all horror video game coded in some way like the kind of environments you'd expect in those areas. But it, it's both because of the constant dialog because of the air filling.

Which is very helpful in that case because even before there's two characters we have the video game character recording logs and gathering information and also getting like environmental storytelling like things written in blood on the walls like you would get.

Jamie: 00:12:38

And flashbacks that are framed like loading screens.

Mike: 00:12:41

Yes. That are really integrated. Well, like yeah.

The movie feels like it's one shot even with flashbacks integrated and even with technically a prologue without the main character that takes place before the main character gets there. That there is a cut back to the main character. But for some reason it still feels like it's all one shot.

Like I like somehow it goes from like the titles to feeling like the camera is still moving and catching up with where the main character is. I, I, I'm not really sure what they did visually to like get that feeling across. But it's, it's a cool Warner looking movie.

But that visual of the side scrolling never gets tiresome and your brain gets used to it really quickly, which surprised me. Like it stops being a novelty, I would say in a like kitschy way, if that makes sense.

Jamie: 00:13:31

Yeah, that's, that's something that's been on my mind a lot lately as we're seeing a lot more low budget movies.

Opt to just embrace the artifice of green screen and double down on the cartooniness to kind of work with a minuscule budget in a stylized a way possible. Which I don't think you could have done a couple of years ago when people were far more hypercritical of that sort of thing.

But I think at this point we're used to even blockbuster movies occasionally just looking fake as shit.

Mike: 00:14:05

Yeah.

Jamie: 00:14:05

Which people bitch about. But it also has the effect of kind of deadening that.

So you see a movie that is shot on a green screen and isn't trying to hide that it's that shot on a green screen. It's kind of meeting the audience halfway.

Mike: 00:14:20

Yeah.

Jamie: 00:14:21

It makes it in a weird way almost more theatrical. Like in the stage sense.

Mike: 00:14:24

Yeah. Artifice is, is part of the game when you're like taking in that particular story.

Though I did see one comment when I first saw Umbrella post about it the day I discovered the movie. One comment was like trying to be like Sin City. I was like, that was like 20 years ago. And also because it's in black and white is very odd to me.

But I mean it's the same principle ultimately.

It's like no using the artifice of green screen, which can actually be very interesting if it's utilized correctly to build an unreality of a world that you can utilize the camera in differently. And I think that's what Wave of Madness does is it's very, very engrossing. And I would kind of love to watch the movie and like with a VR helmet on.

Like that's what I kept thinking of. Like that would look so cool in a. With a VR helmet on.

And I have seen and there has been some experimentation also like with movies that are shot in VR so you can, you know, move your head around and look around the scene while it's going on. That would actually be really cool for something like that.

Jamie: 00:15:28

Yeah, Love to see that.

Mike: 00:15:30

So I do know Trous is right now. I don't know if the Indiegogo's closed or if it's still going. He's working on a horror movie right now.

I forget the name of it off the top of my head, but it's pretty much like a. The idea of it is essentially it's a telltale video game, but it's a movie so you can.

So it has dialog trees, it has different scenes and different endings. You can get. So essentially it's. You are playing, you are playing you.

You are watching a survival horror movie and participating in it by choosing the paths the character goes on throughout the movie.

Jamie: 00:16:08

Yeah. Afar.

Mike: 00:16:09

Yes, that's it.

Jamie: 00:16:10

Yeah. It's now available for pre order, which sounds awesome. I really like that as an eye, as an idea.

Mike: 00:16:17

Yeah. And I like how experimental he's getting now. I don't think we see a lot of. There's a lot of like fan. I mean obviously he's not a.

He's not making fan films or anything like that. But you see a lot of things in the fan film environments that are done to adapt video games.

Much more so because video games aren't adapted anywhere else except in a couple of places right now that actually get like experimental with how things are put together and how integrating the video game into it. And I like how he is going like, what if you started to blend the two storytelling mediums?

Because like you said, with Waves of Madness being very much feeling like a modern side scroller that you'd play like a modern horror side scroller pick up on Steam. It's utilizing the side scrolling aspect in the same way those video games are, which is.

It's not just side scrolling because, well, it's easy to make it. It's easier to make an indie video game that's a side scroller.

But also the way those games integrate side scrolling into part of the storytelling, of how everything is. Is unf. Like, oh, what if we just took that and also then applied it to a movie?

Like, does that have to be stuck purely in a game that you are controlling? Or are you able to be a passive viewer of the same storytelling experience?

And I think the fact that there is such a audience for watching people play video games, even sometimes without commentary, and just watching the games passively get played, especially side scrollers, I mean, isn't that the same thing at that point? Like you're passively watching a story being untold, just in a. Just in a different purview.

Jamie: 00:17:52

It's an interesting full circle for him since he began his career with the fp, which is narrative izing the experience of playing Dance Dance Revolution.

Mike: 00:18:02

And I think by the same token, you could say the need for Speed movie is. Don't stare at me like that. Look, look. That technically, that is a video game movie.

Jamie: 00:18:12

The important thing is Jesse kept driving.

Mike: 00:18:18

So anyway, you can check out Waves of Madness on June 4th on Blu Ray, but it's like I said, available on Google Play and Apple right now.

I don't know when it's hitting other platforms, but I know the standard edition is sold out on umbrella.com, but you can still pick it up on Amazon and a few other places it's being sold at. But Umbrella still has the collector's edition up, which I'm very excited to get in.

And I'm actually really hoping he's done sequels to stuff before, so I'm hoping he does actually do a sequel to this thing.

I'm hoping people also discover it, especially horror fans, because they'd eat this shit up and I would like to see it end up on Shutter or something.

Jamie: 00:18:59

Oh, yeah, it would be very Joe Bob Knight.

Mike: 00:19:02

Yes, him describing the history of side scrolling video games would be so delightful.

Jamie: 00:19:07

Then there came Splatter House, which had all of them.

Mike: 00:19:10

Oh, God. Just I. Okay, does Joboff have a cameo? Because we need him to just say Metroidvania. Like, I want to make that my ringtone every time someone texts me.

It's Metroidvania. Make me so happy. Anyway, so this has been a mini bop for Waves of Madness.

If you like more of the show, you can find it, of course, at box officepulp.com and all of your fine favorite podcasting platforms. I think. I think we're still on those. I don't think we've been taking off yet. Spotify is still a thing, right?

Jamie: 00:19:41

For now.

Mike: 00:19:42

For now. Hey, Spotify Fix your fucking analytics. I can't see anything.

Jamie: 00:19:46

This is why Neil Young hate you.

Mike: 00:19:48

Bring back Google podcasts. Anyway, get the hell out of here.