SHRINK CHAT: The Call, Clown Motel, Repo! & Promising Young Woman

If you don’t care whether the final girl lives, has the movie already failed?

Content note: discussion of sexual assault and revenge, sexual violence in a low-budget horror film, teen violence and a cover-up, and drug use.

Cath opens with Horror Facts, then Shannon brings a new study on testosterone that complicates the idea that it simply makes men aggressive. Our buddy watch is The Call (2020), with Lin Shaye and Tobin Bell in a 1987 phone-call nightmare, followed by the gloriously unhinged Clown Motel (2019), filmed at the real Clown Motel in Tonopah, Nevada. Then it’s Repo! The Genetic Opera, the Shudder documentary Primal Screen on childhood fear and the Magic trailer, Super Dark Times, and a strong recommendation for Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman.

Therapists Shannon and Cathy talk about testosterone and status, why a group watch tells you exactly when a film loses its audience, how one glimpse of something frightening can take over a child’s imagination, and what Super Dark Times shows about the anger teenage boys aren’t taught to talk about.

Covered in this episode:

• Horror Facts with Cath
• Testosterone, fairness and status: punishing and rewarding
• The Call (2020): Lin Shaye, Tobin Bell and a 1980s setup
• Why you need to care about the final girl
• Clown Motel (2019) and the group-watch movie
• Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008) and cult musicals
• Primal Screen, ventriloquist dummies and the Magic trailer
• Super Dark Times (2017) and the hidden lives of teenage boys
• Promising Young Woman (2020) and Carey Mulligan

Clinical themes: hormones and social behavior, status-seeking, childhood fear and imagination, adolescent anger and concealment, revenge narratives and trauma, audience identification.

Corrections and updates: The testosterone study, from Trinity College Dublin and St James’s Hospital, was published in 2016. In Repo! The Genetic Opera, Terrance Zdunich plays GraveRobber; Bill Moseley plays Luigi. Primal Screen is Rodney Ascher’s 2017 Shudder pilot. Clown Motel is the 2019 film, not 2016. Promising Young Woman premiered at Sundance in January 2020 and later won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.

Related episodes:

• Female Revenge Psychopathy: Audition, Stoker, Battle Royale, Promising Young Woman, Ms. 45
• We Need to Talk about Kevin ’cause Kevin is a Psychopath
• SHRINK CHAT: The Void, Crazy, Not Insane & God Told Me To

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Two licensed therapists, one forensic psychologist, one clinical LMFT, take apart the minds behind the crimes.

Until then... sleep safe. 😴
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