No Other Choice (2025) with Scott and Drew

Ready or Not 2: Here I Come (2026) with Scott and Drew

Episode 049: This week on Story Punk, Psycho Summer continues with Ready or Not 2: Here I Come, the 2026 sequel that picks up almost exactly where the original movie left Grace: covered in blood, surrounded by burning wreckage, and apparently nowhere near finished with homicidal rich people. Samara Weaving returns as Grace, whose escape from the Le Domas family has triggered a much larger and more dangerous game. Four powerful families are now competing for control of a supernatural throne, and whoever kills the surviving bride before dawn inherits enough influence to shape world events. Unfortunately for Grace, the game also pulls in her estranged sister Faith, played by Kathryn Newton, forcing the two women to survive both an army of privileged lunatics and years of unresolved family resentment. We discuss how the sequel expands the mythology of the original without abandoning its basic engine: wealthy people hunting someone they consider disposable. The mansion is bigger, the rules are stricter, the cast is larger, and the explosions contain considerably more human goo. They also explore how Grace has changed since the first movie. No longer surviving mostly through luck and the incompetence of her pursuers, she has become a more proactive and dangerous protector. Her relationship with Faith gives the movie a new emotional center and raises one of the episode’s central questions: does surviving trauma make someone stronger, or simply more capable of violence? The conversation covers Samara Weaving and Kathryn Newton’s sister dynamic, Elijah Wood’s scene-stealing performance as the supernatural game’s strangely relaxed lawyer, Shawn Hatosy and Sarah Michelle Gellar as viciously competitive twins, David Cronenberg as a dying patriarch with global influence, and the increasingly cartoonish collection of families willing to kill each other for absolute power. We also debate whether the sequel successfully earns its bigger scale, why its new villains are less distinctive than the Le Domas family, and how its expanded world deepens the original movie’s satire of inherited wealth. The people in power will manipulate, murder, and destroy anyone standing between them and their privilege, even when the greatest threat comes from their own greed and incompetence. Plus: supernatural loopholes, explosive rule violations, satanic weddings, pepper-spray combat, rocket-launcher revenge, industrial laundry equipment, sequel escalation, and the deeply comforting knowledge that even the people secretly controlling the world still need a lawyer to explain the fine print. Listen now to Story Punk, where story matters.

Ready or Not (2019) with Scott and Drew

Episode 048: This week on Story Punk, we kick off Psycho Summer, a month devoted to movies where seemingly everyone wants the protagonist dead, with Ready or Not, the 2019 horror comedy from Radio Silence directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett. Samara Weaving stars as Grace, a new bride expecting champagne, romance, and perhaps a few uncomfortable conversations with her wealthy new in-laws. Instead, an old family tradition forces her into a game of hide-and-seek where being discovered means being sacrificed before sunrise. We unpack why Ready or Not works as both a tense survival thriller and a viciously funny satire of inherited privilege. Also exploring the Le Domas family’s supernatural bargain, the violence buried beneath its fortune, and how generations of wealth have convinced these people that everyone outside their mansion is expendable. The conversation also digs into Samara Weaving’s performance and Grace’s transformation from unsuspecting bride to credible action-horror survivor. We discuss why the audience becomes invested in her so quickly, how the film makes her injuries and fear feel consequential, and why punching a murderous child can occasionally be extremely satisfying. They also examine the movie’s finely tuned balance of horror and comedy. The jokes never completely drain the tension, the gore never loses its absurd edge, and the villains are not softened into misunderstood antiheroes. They are entitled, dangerous people doing terrible things because they believe their comfort matters more than someone else’s life. Plus: Adam Brody and Andie MacDowell casting choice, Henry Czerny in full patriarch mode, crossbow tutorials on the toilet, unfortunate household employees, weaponized wedding décor, exploding relatives, and why “eat the rich” may be the movie’s most efficient thematic summary. Listen now to Story Punk, where story matters.

RRR (2022) with Scott and Drew

This week on Story Punk, we conclude our international cinema series by going gloriously over the top with RRR, S.S. Rajamouli’s 2022 Telugu-language action epic starring N.T. Rama Rao Jr. and Ram Charan. For me (Scott), it was my first experience with Indian cinema. For Drew, it was another chance to celebrate one of the most joyous, sincere, and spectacular blockbusters ever made. Inspired by the lives of Indian revolutionaries Komaram Bheem and Alluri Sitarama Raju, during British colonial rule, RRR imagines the two men meeting, becoming friends, and unknowingly pursuing individual secret missions that will put them at odds with one another. Their relationship becomes the emotional engine of a movie filled with superhero-scale action, musical spectacle, historical fantasy, revolutionary fury, and enough slow motion to fully satisfy a Zack Snyder fan. We discuss why the film’s nearly three-hour runtime never feels empty, how Rajamouli establishes its heightened reality from the opening scenes, and why every impossible stunt works because the movie makes the audience care about the people performing it. The conversation explores the theme of unity, the instant chemistry between Bheem and Raju, and the emotional sincerity that separates RRR from blockbusters built only around noise and digital spectacle. They also break down the bridge rescue, the animal-filled palace attack, Bheem’s public whipping, the prison escape, and the Oscar-winning “Naatu Naatu” sequence, where a dance competition becomes cultural resistance, romantic comedy, character development, and pure cinematic electricity. They also discuss the differences between Bollywood and India’s many regional film industries, the international breakthrough of Telugu cinema, the movie’s fire-and-water imagery, Ray Stevenson’s vicious colonial villain, and why Hollywood’s largest action films could learn from a movie this committed to friendship, emotion, and story. Plus: magnificent mustaches, airborne motorcycles, weaponized wildlife, heroic posing, forty-minute opening credits, and why RRR may be the perfect gateway into the enormous world of Indian cinema. Listen now to Story Punk, where story matters.

The Secret Agent (2025) with Scott and Drew

Episode 046: This week on Story Punk, we continue our June international cinema series with a trip to 1977 Brazil for The Secret Agent, Kleber Mendonça Filho’s sprawling and unsettling political thriller starring Wagner Moura. Moura plays Armando, an engineer living under the alias Marcelo after a confrontation with a powerful businessman forces him into hiding. He travels to Recife hoping to escape the country with his young son, finding refuge among a community of ordinary people whose lives have been disrupted by political persecution, corporate influence, and a government that can make its enemies disappear. We explore how The Secret Agent uses the ingredients of a conventional espionage thriller, including secret identities, surveillance, code names, hired killers, and political conspiracy, while refusing to become a traditional spy movie. The real threat is larger and harder to see: a system in which wealthy corporations, police, and state power overlap until no one can tell where one ends and another begins. They discuss the movie’s patient world-building, the slow accumulation of dread, and why the danger becomes more immediate once it finally takes human form. They also examine the film’s shifting timelines and its portrait of political violence echoing through children, families, buildings, and entire generations long after the original victims have disappeared. The conversation also covers Wagner Moura’s grounded performance, and the film’s remarkable ensemble, its blend of professional and nonprofessional actors, Udo Kier’s memorable appearance, Recife’s distinct identity, and the strange legend of the murderous Hairy Leg. Plus: corrupt cops, casual brutality, movie-palace ghosts, Jaws, The Omen, David Lynch energy, regional accents, fever-dream heat, and why the most frightening villain may be one too large to fit inside a single frame. Listen now to Story Punk, where story matters.

Parasite (2019) with Scott and Drew

Episode 045: In this episode of Story Punk, we put Parasite under the microscope, the 2019 South Korean film directed by Bong Joon Ho. Winner of Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best International Feature Film at the 2020 Academy Awards, Parasite follows the struggling Kim family as they infiltrate the wealthy Park household by posing as unrelated skilled workers. The episode explores why the film remains one of the most acclaimed movies of the 21st century. We discuss Bong Joon Ho’s direction, the film’s class commentary, its shifting tone, the shocking basement reveal, the use of smell as a marker of poverty and class separation, the Park family house, the Kim family’s flooded apartment, and the movie’s unforgettable third act. The conversation also covers Song Kang Ho, South Korean cinema, Memories of Murder, Snowpiercer, The Host, the film’s production design, its Oscar wins, the Criterion edition, the black-and-white version, and why Parasite works as a thriller, comedy, tragedy, social satire, and class-war horror story all at once. For fans of movie podcasts, film analysis, Bong Joon Ho films, Korean cinema, international movies, Best Picture winners, social thrillers, class satire, and conversations about why stories matter, this Story Punk episode is for you. Listen now to Story Punk, where story matters.