Four girls. One magical pair of jeans. And a summer that changes everything. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is a 2005 coming-of-age film that follows best friends Lena, Tibby, Carmen, and Bridget as they scatter across the world for their first summer apart. Before they go, they discover a thrift store pair of jeans that — against all odds — fits all four of them perfectly. They make a pact: the pants will travel between them throughout the summer, carrying their stories, heartbreaks, and revelations.

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🎥 The Format
This episode kicks off Season 3 with a twist: Kit picks a movie that meant everything to her growing up — and Cade watches it for the first time. It’s the new format for the season: alternating picks along a theme, starting with “Stories That Stick.” These are the films that shaped our taste, cracked something open in us, or made us feel seen before we knew what that meant. This week, it’s Kit’s turn to lead — and she brings Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants to the table.

✅ What Makes It Work

For a film that could’ve coasted on teenage drama tropes and mid-2000s sentimentality, Sisterhood punches above its weight emotionally. It’s rare to see four fully realized female characters given space to explore grief, anger, love, fear, and identity — all without being flattened into stereotypes. Each girl’s storyline touches on something real:

• Carmen faces the ache of a father who’s moved on without her.

• Lena has a quiet romance in Greece that asks her to risk vulnerability.

• Tibby starts the summer with cynicism and ends it in a story about loss.

• Bridget channels her energy into soccer to avoid her deeper grief.

Cade expected a light, breezy watch. What he got instead was something that lingered. For Kit, this movie was once a lifeline — a film that understood her before she had the words. Watching it now, she sees new layers. The performances — particularly from America Ferrera and Amber Tamblyn — still hold up. The cinematography has that soft, golden-hour glow that defined a whole era of teen filmmaking, but the emotional core feels timeless.

⚠️ What Doesn’t Land

Not every element holds up. The “magical jeans” device walks a fine line between charming and clunky. For Cade, it sometimes felt like an unnecessary gimmick — a literal thread trying to stitch four independent stories together. And while the film juggles its four arcs with surprising grace, the segmented structure does mean some stories get less space to breathe. Bridget’s storyline, in particular, raises complex themes around grief and intimacy but never quite lands with the depth it deserves.

Also — this is a very 2005 movie. That means a few stylistic choices (and dialogue lines) feel dated in ways that occasionally pull you out of the moment. But that’s part of the charm too.

💸 Should It Have a Bigger Budget?

Not necessarily. Part of the film’s sincerity comes from its scale. It doesn’t try to be glossy. It stays grounded in the ordinary heartbreaks and revelations of growing up. And that makes it feel more honest.

🎯 The Verdict

Sisterhood might not show up on the usual Best Of lists. But for the people it reached at the right time, it’s unforgettable. Cade came in skeptical — and left with a surprising appreciation for the emotional intelligence packed into this seemingly simple story. Kit, meanwhile, revisited a formative film with new eyes, and found that it still has something to say.

It’s not about whether the pants are magical. It’s about the way stories travel with us — even when we’re apart. Especially when we’re apart.

📺 Where to Watch

Streaming on Max (as of August 2025). Also available for rent or purchase on most major platforms.

🍿 Pair This Movie With...

• A stack of old letters from your best friend.

• Your high school diary (if you dare).

• A quiet night where you need a good cry — and something gentle to hold you through it.

🎤 Cade & Kit Sign-off

Kit: “This was the first movie that made me feel like I wasn’t alone in how complicated it all was.”

Cade: “Not what I expected. In the best way. Also, I cried a little. Fine, a lot.”

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It’s 1974. A cryptic serial killer known only as Long Legs is leaving behind a string of murders tied to occult symbols and coded messages. Enter FBI agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe), an intuitive and emotionally reserved profiler whose connection to the case runs deeper than expected. As the bodies pile up, Harker must navigate her own past, psychic intuition, and a very real evil to stop a killer that might not be entirely human.

🎥 The Format

Directed by Osgood Perkins, Long Legs leans fully into analog dread. It’s a retro-styled procedural horror film soaked in grainy film textures, oppressive stillness, and surreal editing. Think Zodiac meets Hereditary, with Nicolas Cage showing up in a deeply disturbing third-act reveal as the titular killer — more demon than man.

There’s not a ton of dialogue. And the quiet? It’s weaponized. Scenes hang just a beat too long, or cut away just before resolution, making you sit in the discomfort. And it works.

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✅ What Makes It Work

The atmosphere is masterfully crafted. Cade called it “true analog horror” — and not in the jump-scare, VHS-core way. It’s slow evil. The film uses silence, shadow, and suggestion to dig under your skin.

Kit was especially struck by how the movie forces you to feel what Harker feels without spoon-feeding exposition. You’re as unsettled and unsure as she is, which makes the psychic subplot feel earned, not gimmicky.

And then there's Nicolas Cage. His screen time is limited, but unforgettable. It's Cage as a full-blown nightmare, draped in hair and whispered menace. The decision to hold back his presence until late in the game? Genius.

⚠️ What Doesn’t Land

The film’s ambiguity will either fascinate or frustrate. You won’t get clean answers. In fact, you may leave the theater asking, “Wait, what was that ending?”

Also, the slow pacing — which we loved — might test the patience of anyone expecting a more conventional thriller. It’s not here to entertain you with action. It wants to haunt you.

💸 Should It Have a Bigger Budget?

Honestly? No. Long Legs thrives in its minimalism. A higher budget might have invited over-explaining, slicker production, or studio interference. This is horror as art — better left unpolished.

🎯 The Verdict

Kit gave it an 7.5. Cade gave it a 7. This is elevated horror that isn’t trying to be “elevated.” It’s just good — weird, nerve-rattling, and surprisingly intimate.

Expect this one to be divisive, but for horror fans who like their nightmares slow-burned and whisper-quiet, Long Legs will crawl under your skin and stay there.

📺 Where to Watch

Currently in theaters via NEON. Check local listings — especially for smaller indie cinemas.

🍿 Pair This Movie With...

• Snack: A black-and-white cookie (comforting but eerie in its duality)

• Drink: Cold coffee with a splash of something strange

• Activity: Rewatch The Ring or Zodiac for that same creeping dread

If The Silence of the Lambs and The Babadook had a cursed VHS baby raised on true crime podcasts — this would be it. Disturbing. Artful. Unforgettable.

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We watched it. We napped. We have notes.

📹 The Premise
Red Rooms (originally filmed in French and set in Montreal) follows a high-IQ fashion model who becomes disturbingly obsessed with a serial murder trial. She’s not on the jury, she’s not press—she’s just there. Attending every day. Giving nothing away. Slowly unraveling.

As she spirals deeper into obsession, she starts gambling online, exploring the dark web, and chasing the elusive third “murder video” rumored to exist from a series of killings connected to the trial. If that sounds like a tense psychological thriller, hold that thought.

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🎥 The Format
This is a sleek, sterile, slow-burn art house film that plays more like a drama than horror. Every shot is deliberate. Every walk down a hallway is uncut. Every smoothie blend, every AI interaction, every poker hand—played in full.

The pacing is patient. The acting is minimal. The story? Well, we’re still trying to piece it together.

✅ What Makes It Work
The lead actress (Kelly-Depeault) delivers a quietly commanding performance. Most of the film is her—alone, watching, decoding, reacting. It’s expression-heavy, dialogue-light, and the camera is right there the whole time. Her portrayal of obsessive focus is believable and tightly controlled.

We also appreciated the French-language delivery, a strong sense of atmosphere, and some clever integrations of modern tech (like AI assistants, DuckDuckGo, and crypto bidding). The vibe? Mute cool. Moody. Intentionally uncomfortable.

⚠️ What Doesn’t Land
Let’s start with the runtime. At just under two hours, it feels like four. Nothing is rushed. Not a single thing. We watch her make a smoothie in real time. We watch her sit in alleys. We stare at her playing racquetball alone.

But it’s the unanswered whys that drag the film down:
– Why is she obsessed with the trial?
– Why sleep in an alley when you live in a luxury high-rise?
– Why destroy your AI assistant?
– Why impersonate a dead girl in front of her grieving mother?

The film dabbles in vigilante justice, trauma fixation, and dark web voyeurism—but without offering enough clarity to feel anchored. It gestures toward ideas, but never explores them. The mystery isn’t compelling, just… incomplete.

💸 Should It Have a Bigger Budget?
No. The budget was more than enough to do what this film was trying to do: minimalist psychological mood piece. It’s not lacking funds—it’s lacking narrative connection. There’s no clear character arc, no satisfying payoff, and the tone never shifts. Just more slow stares and unanswered tension.

🍿 Pair This Movie With...

• Snack: Unsalted almonds you forgot you were eating

• Drink: Room-temperature mineral water

• Activity: Light Googling about the dark web (but just for research)

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We sat through it so you don’t have to.

📹 The Premise
In Late Night with the Devil, we follow a 1970s late-night TV host making one last desperate attempt to save his ratings during Halloween sweeps. The plan? Go full spooky: invite a psychic, a debunker, a traumatized child host to a demon, and the psychologist who wrote Talking with the Devil. What could go wrong on live TV?

As the episode unfolds, so does the chaos. Paranormal activity, hypnotism, audience walkouts, and a demonic possession escalate the drama in real time. The problem? Somewhere between the practical effects and the promising concept, the movie loses its voice.

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🎥 The Format
It’s a stylized blend of “found footage,” studio broadcast tape, and behind-the-scenes cuts (shown in black and white) that aims to replicate the look and feel of a real vintage TV production. The set is period-perfect, the VHS flicker filters are on point, and the commercial breaks have that classic “Please Stand By” energy.

But the emotional throughline? Wobbly. We left more confused than creeped out — and not in the “elevated horror” kind of way.

✅ What Makes It Work
We’ll give credit where it’s due: the set design is fantastic. It convincingly sells the 1970s talk show vibe. The visual blend of on-air and backstage moments helps separate real-time action from narrative reveals. One standout performance came from the young girl playing the demon vessel — her unsettling delivery was campy in a way that sort of worked.

The film also touches on some interesting themes — the power of suggestion, media manipulation, and grief as a gateway to vulnerability. There’s an attempt to comment on how far we’ll go to hold attention, especially on TV. But…

⚠️ What Doesn’t Land
...the story doesn’t really land anywhere. We spent most of the film unsure whether we were watching satire, psychological horror, or campy theater. The script tiptoes around deeper ideas — grief, cult influence, morality in media — but never commits. Is he haunted by demons or haunted by ratings?

The acting felt flat. Deadpan delivery where intensity was needed. Hollow moments where emotional stakes should have kicked in. And while the hypnosis subplot briefly flirts with interesting ideas about mass suggestion and gullibility, it gets dropped in favor of vague ghost logic and worm hallucinations. (Yeah. Worms.)

🎯 The Verdict
This movie had so much potential. The concept is solid. The era is rich. The genre lane is wide open. But for us, it felt like it kept setting up pins that never got knocked down. It hints at cult conspiracy, emotional breakdowns, demonic possession — but never lets any of it hit full force.

We both gave it a 3 out of 10. For the set, the effort, and the premise, not the payoff. If you’re deeply into art house horror or stylized ‘70s aesthetics, it might land. But for us? It missed.

🍿 Pair This Movie With...

• Snack: Leftover Halloween candy no one really wanted

• Drink: Flat soda with a questionable aftertaste

• Activity: Rewatching a better possession film to cleanse your palate

We survived it… barely. And we kind of loved it.

📹 The Premise
It’s been over a decade since the last Final Destination film, but Death hasn’t been resting. In Bloodlines, the sixth installment in the cult horror series, we’re pulled back into the franchise’s signature loop of near-death, premonitions, and Rube Goldberg-style fatalities — only this time, the curse is hereditary.

Opening in the 1950s with a dreamlike tower collapse that was narrowly avoided, Bloodlines sets up a generational haunting. The woman who saved hundreds now lives off the grid, having tracked decades of obituary “patterns” and death's revenge. Her granddaughter is the new anchor, triggering a fresh cycle of suspense, suspicion, and creative carnage. It’s part family drama, part legacy horror, and pure Final Destination energy.

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🎥 The Franchise Formula Returns
We caught this one at Cineplex VIP in Calgary, Alberta (shout out to their amazing team), and brought a few people along who, like us, grew up scarred by logging trucks and exploding plane engines. Let’s be real: everyone remembers that scene from Final Destination 2. So when the marketing team leaned into that nostalgia — sending out branded logging trucks with “Coming Soon” plastered on the sides — we knew they understood the assignment.

The movie itself? It delivers. If you’ve never seen a Final Destination film, Bloodlines still works as a standalone. If you have seen them, you’ll catch the callbacks — but they’re handled with just enough subtlety to feel earned, not recycled.

✅ What Makes It Work
The setup is tight. The idea of inherited trauma mixed with inherited “survivor’s guilt” gives this entry a deeper emotional hook. The acting is solid, the pacing moves, and the deaths… well, they’re why we came.

This series thrives on tension and payoff. You start seeing signs — a flickering light, a misaligned screw, a dropped item — and the dread builds. And when the final snap happens? It’s always a little worse than you imagined. That’s the fun. This installment nails that balance, giving us suspense sequences that feel earned without overplaying the gore for shock’s sake.

💸 Should It Have a Bigger Budget?
Honestly? No. Part of what makes Final Destination work is its B-movie energy with A-tier execution. Give us strong direction, decent effects, and actors who sell the terror — we don’t need Marvel money. Bloodlines looks great, feels lean, and makes smart use of practical setups.

🎯 The Verdict
Final Destination: Bloodlines is exactly what it needs to be — a tight, effective horror entry that pays homage to the series while giving newcomers an accessible ride. The kill scenes are fresh, the suspense holds up, and the generational theme gives it just enough weight.

🍿 Pair This Movie With...

• Snack: Popcorn with ghost pepper dust (because you deserve to suffer a little)

• Drink: Cherry slushie (red, obviously)

• Activity: Sitting very far away from anything that could fall, snap, swing, or explode

An interview feature from CUFF 2025 with Cade & Kit

📹 The Premise
We caught Love Will Tear Us Apart at the Calgary Underground Film Festival and were immediately drawn in—not just by the blood and goo (though there’s plenty), but by the emotional pulse beneath the body horror. This short film from a trio of emerging creators—director Elijah Ziegler, lead actor Carter Dodd, and co-star Skyler Grey—is the kind of genre surprise CUFF is famous for. So of course, we had to talk to them.

🎥 The Team Behind the Gore
Elijah, Carter, and Skyler met during film school, though their paths didn’t fully cross until this project. Elijah wrote Love Will Tear Us Apart as a kind of emotional antidote to a more cynical earlier film (The Lamb), inspired by his real-life relationship and produced with his partner Carmen, who wore every hat from editor to production designer.

Skyler joined the team after spotting the logo on the script and feeling an instant pull. Carter, already close with Elijah from their first film, signed on again—cementing a creative crew that quickly turned into a real film family.

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Hi, we’re Cade & Kit.
Usually we’re here to review. But today we’re here to celebrate.

At CUFF 2025, we sat down with Jakob — writer, producer, and co-architect of Vampire Zombies from Space, one of our favorite discoveries of the festival. A satirical, wildly committed 1950s B-movie parody, the film blends camp, horror, and deeply intentional comedy in ways that had us laughing and admiring the technical craft.

This is a conversation about making the stupid smart, the sincere ridiculous, and why comedy is harder than people think.

When the laundromat opens a gate to the underworld, and you still somehow doze off.

Some movies try to hide their weirdness. Portal to Hell proudly tapes it to the front window of a laundromat and dares you to ask about it.

We went in expecting mid-tier camp, neon lighting, and some literal hellfire. We got... well, all of that. But also: a surprisingly slow midsection, a demon with a deal to make, and one of us fighting the urge to take a nap between blood sacrifices.

Some films you watch with friends.
Others… you absolutely should not.

We didn’t know what we were walking into with Sugar Rot. The poster looked playful. The premise sounded weird-but-fun. So we invited a whole group to come with us.

That was a mistake.

By the end of this surreal, pastel-drenched horror spiral, we were avoiding eye contact with half the audience, Googling whether trauma can be transmitted via soft-serve, and whispering “did we just see that?” far more often than we should’ve.

📹 The Premise: Ice Cream, Objectification, and Slow Internal Decay

Sugar Rot centers on a young woman working at an ice cream shop. At first, it’s unclear whether the shop is also a strip club — and that confusion kind of sets the tone. She’s surrounded by pressure: a friend constantly undergoing plastic surgery to impress a boyfriend, men who treat her like an object, and a world that seems to expect sweetness from her no matter what.

So she gives them what they want. And it rots her from the inside out.

Literally.

We’re talking cotton candy coming out of body parts, frosting-covered gore, and an emotional collapse that looks like a candy ad gone rancid.

🎥 The Format: Art House Meets Gorecore

This is a film that says no thank you to genre rules.

It’s one part erotic nightmare, one part feminist performance piece, and one part body-horror dessert table. The visuals are aggressively saccharine — pastels, candy, bright lighting — which makes the subject matter hit even harder. Everything looks fun. Until it really, really isn’t.

And then there’s the sound.
Unfortunately, it’s not good. Dialogue feels disconnected from the visuals, with what sounds like dubbed-in audio overtop. The mix is off, the syncing is loose, and it pulls you out of the film more than once.

✅ What Makes It Work

• The metaphor is brutal and effective. Rotting from the inside while performing sweetness? We get it.
• It dares to go there. And by “there,” we mean places that made us deeply, deeply uncomfy.
• Visuals are unforgettable. You will never look at frosting the same way.

⚠️ What Doesn’t Land

• The sound editing is rough. Distractingly so.
• Plot clarity is lacking. Is this a surreal fable? A literal breakdown? We’re not sure.
• Audience discomfort is real. This film is not for the faint of heart, the prudish, or the easily embarrassed.

💸 Should It Have a Bigger Budget?

Not necessarily. The lo-fi, hyper-saturated look adds to the weirdness. But the sound absolutely needed more attention. A tighter audio mix would’ve elevated the entire experience.

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🎯 The Verdict

Sugar Rot is one of those movies you’ll either admire for its boldness… or swear to never speak of again. It’s artful, experimental, and uncomfortable in a way that feels intentional. But for us? It went a little too hard on the frosting and not hard enough on the structure.

Kit: 2/10 — “There’s a scene I literally can’t describe out loud. That’s a no for me.”
Cade: 1.5/10 — “Props for pushing boundaries. I just wish I hadn’t invited people I know.”

📺 Where to Watch

Look for it at festivals or underground cinema circuits.
This is not a Netflix-and-chill type of experience.
It’s more like: Netflix and then unpack with your therapist.

🍿 Pair This Movie With...

• Snack: Sour gummies. You’ll want something that fights back.
• Drink: Spiked soda you regret halfway through.

• Activity: Deleting your group chat. Or renaming it “Sorry About Sugar Rot.”

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