Versus: The Competitive Movie Review Podcast · J & J

Versus Mini Episode # 7: 10 Crazy Cult Movies

·23 min·1 clip

Ty West's The Sacrament retells the last days of Jonestown through vice reporters at Eden's Parish.

Jamie and Jessica start by saying this is another mini episode. They apologize for that, then explain that a full-length episode is coming once life settles down a bit. One of them is moving. A new job has eaten up time, and the usual lunch-car recording slot has been wrecked by Ontario heat. It is hot. They say Ontario has been sitting around 35 degrees, basically fucking sweat, and the car feels like the worst place to try to make a podcast. They joke that somebody would have to come break a window and pull them out. From there, they reset the subject. Cult movies here means movies that, in some way, feature a cult, after first correcting the idea that it means old titles that later became favorites. Then they pin it down to movies about cults. The conversation keeps circling the way trailers can lie. The Empty Man is the clearest example, because the trailer makes it look like a Slender Man-style bottle-and-name curse movie when the real thing is much stranger. They say not to watch the trailer. They also mention Black Phone, which had a terrible poster and a terrible trailer, and say an Emerson recommendation is what finally pushed them to watch it. That turned out well. They call Black Phone great, and that small turn into personal recommendation gives the whole stretch a lived-in feel instead of a canned review. Mike from That Chapter comes up next. He had talked about The Empty Man on a true crime podcast segment, and even though they say they disagree with him quite a bit, the suggestion was enough to make them give the movie a chance. They think the ending is crazy. By the time they land on The Sound of My Voice as number seven, with its 2011 date, 14A rating, and Zal Batmangilij name mangled and then apologized for, the episode has settled into the exact sort of scrappy horror-chat rhythm this show likes.

As heard by us

A fast mini episode about cult movies that keeps coming back to how misleading a trailer can be.

Versus uses its mini-episode slot to look at movies about cults, and the running joke is clear: trailers can sell the wrong kind of movie. The discussion circles The Empty Man and Black Phone, with Emerson and That Chapter helping push those titles into the conversation.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

For when you want cult-movie talk that keeps tripping over bad trailers in a good way.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Versus: The Competitive Movie Review Podcast