The Ruins | Crooked Media
25% OFF NEW ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTIONS—Join Friends of the Pod Today! 25% OFF NEW ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTIONS—Join Friends of the Pod Today!
August 15, 2023
Ruined with Alison Leiby and Halle Kiefer
The Ruins

In This Episode

Halle and Alison make the mistake of leaving the resort to ruin The Ruins.

 

TRANSCRIPT

 

[AD BREAK]

 

[theme music] If scary movies give you dread. Keep you up late night in bed, here’s a podcast that will help you ease your mind. We’ll explain the plot real nicely then we’ll talk about what’s frightening, so you never have to have a spooky time. It’s Ruined.

 

Halle Kiefer: Hello! Welcome, everyone. I’m Halle. 

 

Alison Leiby: And I’m Alison. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And this is Ruined, a podcast about horror movies. Sorry, I I blacked out there [laugh] for a fucking second. 

 

Alison Leiby: All right, Mitch McConnell. 

 

Halle Kiefer: What do you think happened there? 

 

Alison Leiby: I don’t I– 

 

Halle Kiefer: Not that good. 

 

Alison Leiby: Maybe that was the aliens. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Well, let’s talk about the aliens in a second but– 

 

Alison Leiby: Let’s talk about the aliens. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Before we do, this is a podcast where we ruin a horror movie. Um. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Alison, how are you doing? And I guess now it’s a way in, how are you doing with regards to both Mitch McConnell and the aliens? Let’s start with Mitch. 

 

Alison Leiby: I mean. Look, if he is having major health problems, that is obviously a real thing. But I certainly think it means that you shouldn’t be um in charge of the country anymore if you’re going to have like, but then it’s like but it’s like I want John Fetterman to be still in his office, so I don’t know how to kind of–

 

Halle Kiefer: I think that’s fair. That that’s fair. 

 

Alison Leiby: I don’t know how to square like– 

 

Halle Kiefer: –square. 

 

Alison Leiby: –aside from it being my politics. But like, hey, come on Mitch, get out of here. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Oh, and I mean, like, listen, I live in California. Dianne Feinstein, we got to get her out of there, man. She’s going to drop dead on on the floor. 

 

Alison Leiby: Has she already like I mean, how do we know that she’s not kind of in like, a death knell? Like. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Well, and this week–

 

Alison Leiby: Just saying, saying yay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. 

 

Alison Leiby: Uh. As, like, a final word. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I mean, if she even says it, she’s probably is a going to go on a whole rant, I this is. Yeah, you’re right. Because it’s one thing to rant about the gerontocracy. It’s another thing to be like, oh, if someone has a medical problem, they should be removed from office. 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Which we don’t agree with obviously. 

 

Alison Leiby: At all. No, that’s like completely not what we’re saying, but if you’re in your eighties and your health has been declining, it’s not going to you’re not going to get better. And it’s not like. You shouldn’t be doing anything when you’re 80. You shouldn’t be running the country in your eighties. Like, just stop working. We all want to I want to stop working one day. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I want to start, stop working today. 

 

Alison Leiby: Today. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Today. 

 

Alison Leiby: Today. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Tomorrow I don’t want to be working anymore. 

 

Alison Leiby: I don’t want to work anymore. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I want to turn into a bird [laugh] and fly and live in a tree. 

 

Alison Leiby: And fly? Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Um I–

 

Alison Leiby: I just want to be my cat. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I couldn’t agree more. And I it just. I guess it’s sort of like you just become so entrenched because you’re there for uh decades. 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: That the idea of like oh it would be better to train someone and like, bring up another generation– 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –of Democrats that I trust and like, or not even try, but like, it’s like we have to be– 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –grooming the next people. Ra– and then rather than we’re going to wait till Diane Feinstein doesn’t even know where the fuck she is. 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: To be like, oh oh shit, we should have figured this out. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh shit. Right.

 

Halle Kiefer: –ten years ago– 

 

Alison Leiby: –somebody– 

 

Halle Kiefer: –five years ago. 

 

Alison Leiby: Somebody had a great tweet and I will continue to call it Twitter and be on it until the ship goes down um or when they officially make dark mode the only mode because I don’t use dark mode um um about how like it’s crazy that like Wyoming has two senators, but California with 40 million people technically only has one because Dianne Feinstein doesn’t fucking count. [laugh]

 

Halle Kiefer: I, it is tough stuff. And yeah, I definitely I think we all know of the many, many problems with how our government works. It truly makes no fucking sense. 

 

Alison Leiby: It doesn’t. We really fucked up. 

 

Halle Kiefer: But I guess it was, did we fuck up or is this was this was the intention? You know, it’s like it’s not– 

 

Alison Leiby: Probably the intention. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –really about representing the most– 

 

Alison Leiby: No. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –number of people. 

 

Alison Leiby: No. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Um. 

 

Alison Leiby: It’s about hoarding uh– 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yes. 

 

Alison Leiby: –money. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Wealth and power. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And. And then the aliens. How do you feel about the alien? I’d like to get your thoughts. You know what mine are going to be, but I’d like to know yours. 

 

Alison Leiby: I look, I fully think that other lifeforms exist in the universe because–

 

Halle Kiefer: Absolutely. 

 

Alison Leiby: It would be absolutely [laughter] insane if it was just us. Like–

 

Halle Kiefer: Unlikely. Unlikely. 

 

Alison Leiby: It it seems very unlikely. So I do think stuff is out there. Do I think somebody is t– like, yeah, they’ve probably come in contact. They’ve probably figured out where we are. Maybe, but like I haven’t watched any of that hearing and I saw and like, I haven’t been too engaged with it. But apparently, like the guy who was like, I have evidence, we have proof, like I guess also has a bunch of other crazy. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. He does. 

 

Alison Leiby: So I’m just like, oh, well, maybe this is like, I think that, like, it is very possible that aliens have landed on Earth and that we do have evidence. And I also think that this guy isn’t the one with that information. [laugh] 

 

Halle Kiefer: It’s interesting because you do have all of these like former um government officials who really are on board with it. 

 

Alison Leiby: Uh huh. 

 

Halle Kiefer: But, you know, I mean, we have a lot of people who believe in a lot of crazy religions. Uh like people believe in Bigfoot, you know, like–

 

Alison Leiby: Right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Belief um and even testimony about [?] something they experience, is not real. So for me watching it, I’m like, I want to believe the aliens are real. I want to– 

 

Alison Leiby: Of course. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –believe they’re here to save us from climate change. 

 

Alison Leiby: Please. Save us.

 

Halle Kiefer: I wouldn’t be more thrilled. I wouldn’t even mind if they were here to blow up the planet at this point. 

 

Alison Leiby: That would be fine. 

 

Halle Kiefer: We’re you know, we’re fine with it. 

 

Alison Leiby: We’re cool with it. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Not really. It just like, if they did it really fast, it would be like, you know, aren’t we all just submersible? We wouldn’t know. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I don’t want the planet to blow up, but I think it’s one of those things where like we’re all on I think most people are on board. I need a little bit more than a gentle, oh a straight white gentle cisgentleman– 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Ranting and raving in front of Congress about some stuff. Oh, could we get like a, a DNA test? Could we get–

 

Alison Leiby: Something? 

 

Halle Kiefer: –any? I need I and at the end of the day, truly and, you know, as people who are more skeptical, not skeptical about the existence of aliens, skeptical about this specific guy and the– 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –stuff he’s talking about, I’m gonna need them to haul out a little body. I’m gonna need to see– 

 

Alison Leiby: I need a little green guy. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –a body. I need to see a big old gray head or green head. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: If you see those big, old black eyes? Until then, I’m sorry. You’re just telling tall tales. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. Um. My all time favorite Twitter account slash comedy source is Da share z0ne. Um. I don’t know if– 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yes. [?] you have told me, but I followed it on your recommendation. [laughter] Had a–

 

Alison Leiby: It’s I there’s not a post I don’t laugh at it’s so outrageous um and like literally unhinged but he had one when the there’s always something like vaguely topical in them and he had one for aliens and um he said stop hiding gray bitch. Like about the aliens. [laughing] 

 

Halle Kiefer: That’s absolutely how I feel about it. 

 

Alison Leiby: Like, stop hiding– 

 

Halle Kiefer: Absolutely. 

 

Alison Leiby: –gray bitch. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Like if they’re teasing us. 

 

Alison Leiby: And that’s how I feel. 

 

Halle Kiefer: If they’re being little silly teases. I just don’t– 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. Stop being so coquettish aliens. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Because if it’s like, Oh we didn’t [?]– 

 

Alison Leiby: Let us see you. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Like, oh, we don’t want them to know because they’ll freak out, bitch, look around. We’re already freaking out like things are going wrong, please. 

 

Alison Leiby: Again, the fact that it’s like, barely been a blip and we’re like, Oh, should we talk about the aliens? I guess maybe we should talk about the aliens because there’s so many other things that are so much more oppressive and important, like that are–

 

Halle Kiefer: Right like– 

 

Alison Leiby: –weighing on us. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Like– 

 

Alison Leiby: Some guy did a flowchart on TikTok that was like, here’s how I figure out if I care about something. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yes. 

 

Alison Leiby: Uh, news breaks, do I have to pay rent still? Yes. I don’t care about it. Do I have to go to work tomorrow? Yes. I don’t care about it. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah, I. I will say I definitely had a conversation with someone recently and this is not anything about them, but they were like, yeah, it’s like, I don’t know why like, the writers are striking, like, Ai is going to take over everything. It’s like they will just all have to get other jobs. And I kept being like, but what are the other jobs? 

 

Alison Leiby: What other jobs? 

 

Halle Kiefer: And it’s like every industry they said it was like, Well, yeah, but I’m imagining that also will be, you know, will be taken over– 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –by AI. And then finally this person goes, well, we’ll have to learn to code. I’m like, you think they’re not planning to have AI code? 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah, that’s like– 

 

Halle Kiefer: That’s– 

 

Alison Leiby: –the first thing they know how to do. 

 

Halle Kiefer: The first thing! Like, I’m like, that’s I don’t know why they’re doing that, but their– 

 

Alison Leiby: It doesn’t make any sense. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –jobs will first will be. You create something to take your own job. I guess a lot of us have done that historically. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: But yeah, it truly makes zero sense to me. 

 

Alison Leiby: No sense. 

 

Halle Kiefer: But yet again, in so many ways, we’re not in control of this. If the aliens are going to show up, let me see you gray bitch. [snapping]

 

Alison Leiby: Let’s let’s go. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Let’s fucking go. 

 

Alison Leiby: Let’s go. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I’m sorry. Um. Also I know this is going to be a downer, but I always think of like, when people were like, Oh, I saw something or I believe something. I always think of that um La– what is her name? Lori Vallow. That woman with her husband who murdered all of her children because they were part of like some weird, like Latter-Day Saints. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh God. Yeah yeah yeah.

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah it’s not real Mormonism, obviously, it’s like some sort of– 

 

Alison Leiby: No, no no it’s like a some– 

 

Halle Kiefer: –weird cult– 

 

Alison Leiby: –bizarre– 

 

Halle Kiefer: –version. 

 

Alison Leiby: –extremist. Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: They really believe they had those experiences. Like, they really– 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –do believe they’ve talked to God and witnessed these things. So I think the idea of like, oh, I saw an alien, it’s like, okay, well, like, who are you? Are you– 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –insane? Like, how? What do you mean? 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I’m going to need to again, we’re going to need to see the bodies. [clapping] We’re going to need some– 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –little, little gray bitches. Okay. 

 

Alison Leiby: There is an Unsolved Mysteries episode on the Netflix reboot that is like, it’s like 350 people across, like a huge swath of Michigan all saw like this very suspicious and unnatural seeming thing happening in the sky that like, everybody was like, is it just tell us if you’re doing military stuff, like just so we know because we’re all going insane. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Well I mean and that’s the other other option is just like that it is military, either us or someone else and that– 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: It’s like the CIA or something. But if it is– 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –honey you’re getting a little sloppy. 

 

Alison Leiby: You’re getting a little sloppy. 

 

Halle Kiefer: You’re getting a little bit, a little bit messy. Okay. You better reign it in. 

 

Alison Leiby: Somebody said that they think that they trotted out all this alien stuff, like, why now? Why not earlier? And why not? Like, it’s like, because we’re going to, like, add a bunch of defense spending and this will justify it. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Well. [?] my friend um my wonderful friend um Meaghan O’Connell. She writes for Romper, which is a great website. Uh. They do a lot of its parenting and they I don’t know. They had a lot of wonderful– 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –stuff on there recently and um and and always and uh she has been uh on Reddit quite a bit sort of looking at the different theories. And I think it’s I want to say two things that one, I do think it could be a distraction, an intentional distraction um in the hopes of buying them more time to do something about climate change. But we know that they won’t. I think the defense spending is a little bit silly because they that’s the one thing that they’ve I mean, like I think Biden’s actually done some really good stuff. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Um. Defense spending is not going to be a problem. The idea that you need to do this to get more defense spending. Who–

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah, no, it’s true. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Who’s who’s holding that up? Like Bernie– 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –Sanders? Like the– 

 

Alison Leiby: We all just watch it happen and we’re like, all right. I mean, I guess we can’t stop this nightmare. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah, like, the idea like we need to do this, since when? Like, what America– 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –is that person talking about. But I understand. We’re trying to understand what the fuck’s going on. So– 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Let’s roll. We’re throwing spaghetti at the wall and I’m there just chomping it out of the air. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yum yum yum. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And again, let me see those gray bitches– 

 

Alison Leiby: Bitches. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –Alison. Speaking of absolute bitches. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Um. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh, hey guys were just popping in or starting off or whatever to tell you. We have another live show coming up. Yay! 

 

Halle Kiefer: Woo! 

 

Alison Leiby: Whee! Uh. Sunday, August 27th at 7 p.m. Eastern, 4 p.m. Pacific. We’re doing a traditional live show moment.co/ruined to get your tickets to see me ruin Sharknado for Halle. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yay. I I’m going to be absolutely honest in classic uh I really am taking on the Alison role. I may have seen Sharknado, but I don’t remember one moment of it. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh. Wow. So this is a real reversal for us. 

 

Halle Kiefer: It’s all gone. It’s gone. I can’t wait. 

 

Alison Leiby: I hope I can remember it. So–

 

Halle Kiefer: Well, we’ll find out. And you’ll find out too.

 

Alison Leiby: We’re going to find out. Yes. So get those tickets they’re ten bucks at moment.co/ruined. We’re going to have some drinking games. We’re going to have the live chat. We’re going to have merch, as always. So please join us and it will be up for 72 hours if you can’t join us Sunday, August 27th. Um. You can watch it until like I don’t know Wednesday or something. So get your tickets and see you then. 

 

Halle Kiefer: We have another installment in our uh vacation horror movie month. We are doing the movie The Ruins. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Um. Which this is the first time in Ruined history where I did think after watching it, wait a minute, did we already do this movie? 

 

Alison Leiby: And there is no–

 

Halle Kiefer: Um. 

 

Alison Leiby: –way for me to know because I forget every single movie that we’ve ever done. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Right. Which it does it’s a very Waiting for Godot type situation– 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –we’ve found ourselves in where we have no memory. 

 

Alison Leiby: None. 

 

Halle Kiefer: No past, no future. There simply is a horror movie. And this movie came out in 2008. It is directed by Carter Smith and written by Scott B. Smith, and it’s written on the 2006 book of the same name. And weirdly, the first guy I ever slept with um gave me the book The Ruins and I remember reading it. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh! 

 

Halle Kiefer: Probably in 2006. Loving it, it’s a great book. 

 

Alison Leiby: I mean uh I. 

 

Halle Kiefer: It’s a beach read. It’s fun. 

 

Alison Leiby: I like, but like a good book becoming a good movie. I mean, what a what a treat. How often does that happen? I feel like it’s always like–

 

Halle Kiefer: Absolutely. 

 

Alison Leiby: –a terrible book can be adapted into a very good screenplay or like a great book and a very disappointing movie. And here we are. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Well we talked about Knock at the Cabin where he changes– 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –the end and it’s like, well, you didn’t understand a damn thing. 

 

Alison Leiby: At all. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Also, not that it matters, but I was looking up and apparently the director, Carter Smith, is gay and I do this does make me like the movie more. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes of course. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Is that fair? No, I don’t care. 

 

Alison Leiby: It doesn’t have to be fair. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Okay. Um. And then uh Scott Smith, the author, oh apparently he also wrote the screenplay for A Simple Plan, which was nominated for a best adapted screenplay. I don’t remember what a simple plan is about. 

 

Alison Leiby: I’m thinking of a simple favor, which was the Blake Lively, Anna Kendrick movie. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I literally was too, which I did love. 

 

Alison Leiby: I got stoned out of my mind and saw that in a movie theater. And I was like, this is fun. [laughing]

 

Halle Kiefer: I I think I think it’s an absolute blast. It’s the kind of movie you put on when you’re doing dishes. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: So I’m actually a huge fan of that movie. 

 

Alison Leiby: Huge fan of that movie. I don’t know what a simple plan is, but it also sounds familiar. [laughing]. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Um. But this was I thought this was an absolute treat and uh I think really appealed to me in as much as that the horror is played for realism. You know, that’s it’s always you’re always going to get my goat when you do that. Um. And uh we always like to take Alison out on the town and show her the trailer before we uh get into a movie. And Alison, what did you think of the Ruins trailer? 

 

Alison Leiby: I didn’t care for this trailer. It looked very scary and like, Oh, like I watched Lost. I loved Lost, um I think. But like any movie where it’s like, Oh, there’s a group of people that don’t seem like they want us to bother them. Should we go bother them? 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yes. 

 

Alison Leiby: The answer is no, you should not go bother them. Um. Never do that. So I it makes me kind of almost hope that everybody in this movie dies. But– 

 

Halle Kiefer: And then and then how what are your feelings about the ruins themselves? What is there any images from the trailer that kind of leapt out at you? 

 

Alison Leiby: Well. Once it’s like once, the one character’s like it’s inside me and there’s like a big like it’s not a bruise, but something clearly living like, below her skin um that really I didn’t. I didn’t like that. At all. 

 

Halle Kiefer: That’s extremely fair. Um. And from this, of course we always like to take it baseline scary for Alison. Alison, how scary do you find being uh trapped on a ruin and uh the local people not letting you leave the area for very good reasons? How scary does that strike you? 

 

Alison Leiby: I it’s very scary because I like, look, we’ve discussed, we are not smart people. I don’t know a lot of things. 

 

Halle Kiefer: No. 

 

Alison Leiby: I am pretty um not gullible, but like– 

 

Halle Kiefer: Dumb. 

 

Alison Leiby: It– 

 

Halle Kiefer: Dumb, a dumb ass. 

 

Alison Leiby: I’m a dumb ass. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Full idiot. 

 

Alison Leiby: Like a stupid person. Um.

 

Halle Kiefer: A drooling nimrod. 

 

Alison Leiby: But, like, if I were in a place that is not mine, so like a ruin that is you know inhabited by a group of people who have lived there for a long time and they were like, don’t leave. I’d be like, they’re probably right. Like– 

 

Halle Kiefer: Oh, yeah. 

 

Alison Leiby: I’m coercible. Like, very coercible in that like, I would just be like, Oh alright. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I’ve always said that about you. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah, I agree. To be fair, I think both of us, neither one of us would have ended up on the situation in this situation. Which we’ll discuss that. 

 

Alison Leiby: If I’m on vacation I’m just sitting on the beach. Just sitting on a beach. That’s all I’m doing. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Our only our preservation is to know that we cannot step too far out of our depth, and we would be very much out of our depth. So we will talk about– 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –that. 

 

Alison Leiby: Extremely. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Um. And before I start, would you like to guess the twist in the Ruins? [ominous music plays]

 

[Guest the twist theme music] Guess the twist. 

 

Alison Leiby: I am going to guess that like um, whatever is circulating is going to be presented as like it’s a demon, it lives in the ruins like you can’t like– 

 

Halle Kiefer: Ooh. 

 

Alison Leiby: But the reality is it’s a virus and it’s just like a medical thing. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Love it. That’s absolutely perfect. Incredible. So we open on oh Alison, you’re going to love this. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: A woman alone. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh, great. 

 

Halle Kiefer: In a completely dark, windowless, airless space below the ground. 

 

Alison Leiby: [grumbles] Grave. 

 

Halle Kiefer: She’s sobbing, been there, girlfriend. Okay. [laughter] She’s screaming, somebody help me. She tries to dial her phone. Alison, it’s broken. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Shattered. She looks up and out of the darkness. We see movement. We hear a little bit of wrestling. Something grabs her leg and she’s jerked away into the shadows. [groan] Cut to beautiful sunny Mexico. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Where we see tourists, Jeff and Stacy, they’re playing cards by the pool of their gorgeous resort. Uh. They’re joined by their respective perspectives, uh significant others, Amy and Eric, who are bringing them a round of shots, margaritas. They have a pitcher of frozen margaritas. So it’s not it’s not like a classy resort, but, you know what I mean, good thing the people are loaded, right? 

 

Alison Leiby: I want a pitc– I want a pitcher of frozen margaritas right now. 

 

Halle Kiefer: That sounds like heaven. 

 

Alison Leiby: Heaven. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I’m not drinking as much right now just because it’s like I literally it’s like if I if I start drinking when I read the news I like, I just have to like try to maintain my own. 

 

Alison Leiby: No it is it is a recipe for chaos. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Woo. But I would drink a virgin margarita right fucking now. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: That sounds delicious. Amy realizes that she’s lost an earring. She flips out. They’re scrambling around their stuff, looking for it. She’s approached by Mathias, who is another traveler from Germany. And I want to just point, everyone is a young, hot white person. Um. And those young, white hot people, because again it’s 2008, we are talking about Jena Malone. We are talking about Shawn Ashmore. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh, sure. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Jonathan Tucker, who I completely forgot about um but is great in this movie and has been in a bunch of different stuff. Um. Oh, he was in Westworld. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Um. They are joined by another traveler. He has found her earring in the pool. They offer him a frozen margarita and starts chatting. Stacy, we also early on get some uh comments about Mexico that again are setting them up for later recrimination from the the place in which they are um inhabiting. Uh. Stacy says you know just so you know, those frozen margaritas are made with ice from here and the water in Mexico is contaminated with human feces. So if you drink that, you’re basically drinking hepatitis B. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I was like, Stacy, you are not making it out of this movie alive. 

 

Alison Leiby: No. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Like, we know that right away. 

 

Alison Leiby: That’s not, no. 

 

Halle Kiefer: We find out that Amy and Stacy are best friends and then Eric and oh, my God, sorry Eric and Jeff are their boyfriends. I’m going to say this right now. I already apologize. Jeff, Stacy, Amy, and Eric are the most fucking– 

 

Alison Leiby: They’re the same names. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –generic names. 

 

Alison Leiby: Those are all the same name. I’m sorry if that’s your name, but those names– 

 

Halle Kiefer: Oh no no. 

 

Alison Leiby: –are all the same. 

 

Halle Kiefer: If you put them together, rearrange them. It spells one name. And that name is. I’m so sorry. I can’t. I don’t know. I can’t even read it. So I would like to apologize ahead of time, Mathias at least has a German name. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. Yes.

 

Halle Kiefer: So we’re going to be able to remember him. Um. But this is their second to last day traveling, they’re asking Mathias like, oh, you’re traveling alone? He says, I’m actually traveling with my brother Heinrich. But he met a woman down here. She’s an archeologist, and they went to this really cool dig site. It’s the ruins of a Mayan temple. 

 

Alison Leiby: Whoa. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Everyone else is like, you know, just excited to lay by the beach, the pool and drink. Jeff, however, he’s the studious one. We find out he’s going to med school soon. He’s a nerd. He’s intrigued. He’s saying like, Oh, okay, I’ve been trying to get everyone to go to uh some ruins with me and no one will go. And Mathias says, oh, it’s really cool. It’s this new site, this new dig they’re doing. It’s not even on the maps yet. 

 

Alison Leiby: No. 

 

Halle Kiefer: It’s VIP only. And everyone’s like, okay, well, if it’s VIP only, we’ll go like, oh, okay. If it’s like a special thing that we can tell people we did and take photos. 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Like we’ll go and Mathias says, I’m actually going to go with me tomorrow morning. My brother Heinrich was supposed to be back by now, but I guess he’s having too much fun with his woman. I’m sure he’s fine. Obviously, you know, we know what’s going to happen. Jeff hypes– 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –the group, he’s like a little culture would be nice. Okay. And he gets everyone on board. Amy, uh his girlfriend is the most reluctant. That’s Jena Malone. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: She’s like, do we have to get up early? I’m on vacation, which I agree. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes I I I share her concept of vacation. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And uh we see a bunch of Greek guys jump in the pool and they’re shouting Mathias. And he’s like, oh yeah, they’re probably going to come um too. But these guys are fucking party animals. I don’t even know if I should have invited him, but, you know, just, you know, the offers on the table. That night, they’re on the beach as the sun sets and Amy’s taking the groups’ photo. She’s sort of the group photographer with an actual camera, and there’s also a bar on the beach. So as night falls, people were out there partying, falling down, drunk, like, really getting into it. And Amy tries to get Jeff to dance with her, but he is, again, a nerd, so he’s not a party guy. And they play a game and basically it’s like a game of puns that comes up. And one of them is a hotel heiress dyed her hair blond, and then everyone thinks and someone says, but the carpet didn’t match the drapes. I don’t know what you call that game, but that’s what they’re playing. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I don’t know how you do it. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: The Greeks join them. They give everyone a bottle of liquor. They’re passing it around. And Amy’s giggling and falling to the ground. Instead of helping her up, Jeff basically is like, I’m going to head back to the hotel room. I’m going to get up early to run. And we’re getting up early because we’re going to the ruins. Okay? 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh my God, what a nightmare to travel with. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I know it’s so stressful. Traveling is already so stressful. 

 

Alison Leiby: It’s like just let everybody do what they want to do. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And it’s also like their last day before they’re leaving. So they’re going on this trip and then like the day after, they’re flying out basically. So now that he’s gone, Amy is wasted. She starts dancing with Mathias and starts hitting on him. And Eric and Stacy are kind of canoodling and Eric says, I bet you oral sex that Amy is going to kiss Mathias. And Stacy’s like she’s here with Jeff, who is her longtime boyfriend. And also– 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: The idea of betting oral sex. And she’s like–

 

Alison Leiby: Betting oral sex if your friend will cheat on her boyfriend is, like, really fucked up. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Well, luckily, uh Mexico has a plan for them to get their comeuppance. 

 

Alison Leiby: Good. 

 

Halle Kiefer: But of course, Stacy’s like she would never do something like that, we they look away 30 seconds later. Of course, Amy is kissing Mathias. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And Stacy has to run over to kind of bust it up. And the explanation Stacy gives is basically like oh, she’s just being crazy because Jeff’s med school is 2000 miles away, so or they are about to be 2000 miles away. So they’re in a weird place in their relationship. She got too drunk. She kissed some other guy in front of her friends. Not a great scene, but whatever. Stacy intervenes. In the morning we see Jeff running on the beach at dawn, and we see most of the Greeks who are drunk and passed out on the beach. So he runs past them as he runs back to the resort. He goes to the breakfast area. He sees one of the Greeks, Dimitri, who is coming with them. Uh Dimitri is copying the map, map that [?] gave his brother, Mathias. So uh Dimitri is coming with the gang and Mathias right now, and he’s leaving a copy of the map for the drunk Greeks with the idea that the other Greeks will be joining them later in the day. So the people who are going are our four Americans. Mathias the German and one of the Greeks whose name is Dimitri. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And if you’re wondering if Dimitri is going early, just so we get the body count up, you would be correct. 

 

Alison Leiby: Great. 

 

Halle Kiefer: In the room. In the room, Eric and Stacy have like, the most, like, annoying conversation. Apparently, she didn’t blow him, even though he was correct in the bet and Stacy’s trying to get dressed. Stacy is completely naked because, again, this is like the early 2000s. 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. They’re just like, oh, no female nudity. We must show it for the movie to be valuable. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Just titties out. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And he says: 

 

[clip of Eric from the Ruins] Do you know what they do to people down here who don’t honor their bets. 

 

[clip of Stacy from the Ruins] Bus leaves in like fifteen minutes.

 

[clip of Eric from the Ruins] They smash their hands. 

 

[clip of Stacy from the Ruins] Mm hmm. 

 

[clip of Eric from the Ruins] No, they do. They take broomsticks and they just, like, whack smash their hands. 

 

Halle Kiefer: This is a person who’s trying to ask for oral sex from their partner. 

 

Alison Leiby: You’re threatening violence?

 

Halle Kiefer: And he says to her, it’d be a shame to smash those pretty little hands. I guess if you were deep in some sort of long term dom sub relationship, maybe that’s horny. 

 

Alison Leiby: I guess. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I would be like, I’m going to fucking kill you. What are you talking like– 

 

Alison Leiby: How dare you? 

 

Halle Kiefer: To turn sex into this like like whining [?] I was like, please, this is awful. I’m not saying this is what straightness is, but also. 

 

Alison Leiby: I mean, it’s it’s not not [?]. It’s not what it’s not. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Sexual obligation is not sexy. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Right. But while they’re at while they’re arguing, Stacy also says, please do not tell Jeff that Amy kissed Mathias, she was drunk. It’s not a big deal. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And Eric’s like, I won’t tell if you suck my dick, obviously. And she relents, and he says, I’ll be so quick. Ooh, sexy. I’ll be so quick. Thumbs up guys. 

 

Alison Leiby: Cool. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Meanwhile, over in Jeff and Stacy’s [correction: Halle meant Amy] room, Stacy is extremely hung over. She’s vomiting and she starts to say, which is funny because we recently did the Rental. She’s also like– 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Maybe I shouldn’t go with you guys. Like the classic, like, one partner is so drunk they can’t even leave. But of course, Jeff is too uptight and too excited about the ruins. He’s like, nope, we are going, this is a once in a lifetime experience. Plus, you brought your camera and you just all the photos you have are like us at the pool, us at the beach. This is actually cool shit you could be taking photos of. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: She says, Look, you’re already dressed. I’m not like, just go without me. And he kisses her and he sort of he tells her, but I don’t want to go without you. And wins her over. She’s on board. And also, if she’d only been a little more hungover or a little bit more pissed off, she wouldn’t be in this situation. 

 

Alison Leiby: She might have survived. Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: So the foursome, along with Mathias and Dimitri, they take a bus to a small town and they get a taxi for 18 kilometers, which is they say, is around about 11 miles. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And then there’s a 2.5 mile– 

 

Alison Leiby: Wouldn’t know. 

 

Halle Kiefer: There’s a 2.5 mile hike. I’m going to stop you right there I’m not doing any of it. 

 

Alison Leiby: No, that’s just and also, like, that’s one way you have to get back. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. Like, I’ll take a bus somewhere, but a bus to a taxi and then we hike and then we’re the middle of the jungle. 

 

Alison Leiby: No, no, no.

 

Halle Kiefer: I’m dead. I’m going to die. 

 

Alison Leiby: No. I could barely manage a bus. 

 

Halle Kiefer: They eventually find a taxi, which is just a guy with a pickup truck who’s willing to take them. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And he’s like, sure, I’ll drive you wherever, they show him the map. And luckily, he speaks English. They their Spanish is not great. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: The driver looks at this hand-drawn map and says, Oh, that, place? Absolutely not. I will absolutely not take you there. I’ll take you to the pyramids. Everyone loves the pyramids. Ooh they’re big. Let’s go there. Of course. Dimitri pulls out a wad of cash. The driver says, well, yes, I’ll take you there. You know, and my thing. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Well while they’re driving my whole thing is wait [?] what you ask is like, how the fuck do you get back? You’re not calling an Uber in the middle of the god damn jungle? 

 

Alison Leiby: Right? Like, it’s like even if you can get a ride there like, I don’t– 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. 

 

Alison Leiby: –feel like there’s just, like, taxis kind of hanging out at the base of a two and a half mile hike to a unmapped ruin. 

 

Halle Kiefer: 100%. Luckily, once they park, the gang piles out. Amy finally says, wait how the fuck are we getting back? Jeff says, don’t worry, I got the taxi drivers card. And Mathias says, I have an international phone, I can call from anywhere. So don’t worry. So it’s time to see some ruins. And right before they go into the jungle, Alison, we see Heinrich’s car is parked at the foot of the path. And they’re like–

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Oh, is that your brother’s car? Mathias looks at it. It looks bad. Like it’s been rained on. It’s covered in mud. It’s covered in palm fronds like, it’s not like [?]– 

 

Alison Leiby: It’s not like they left and came back and like–

 

Halle Kiefer: Exactly. 

 

Alison Leiby: It’s just been sitting there. It’s just been sitting. 

 

Halle Kiefer: For a couple of days. 

 

Alison Leiby: Not a good sign. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Exactly. Um. As they walk, Eric starts to, like, tease Amy and starts to play the game they were playing on the beach. He says once there was a very, very drunk girl, who stuck her tongue down some guy’s throat. And Amy freaks out and flips his hat off again, like, please don’t tell Jeff. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And he cuts. He he shuts up. Uh. We also find out that um according to the map, they are going to pass by not through, but past a Mayan village uh where, you know, people who live near the ruins would live. But there’s you know, it’s not really for tourists. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Um. They stop at a creek, Alison, once they start to they cross the creek, you realize they’ve lost the path. There’s no visible path forward. [sigh] Fortunately they spy– 

 

Alison Leiby: It’s– 

 

Halle Kiefer: Oh go ahead sorry. 

 

Alison Leiby: This is why I don’t do things. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I I will never do anything again after watching this movie. 

 

Alison Leiby: Never. [laughing]

 

Halle Kiefer: They spy two little children sort of spying at them from up the hill. And Stacy and Eric say, oh, let’s wave them down and ask for directions. It’s like you’re asking two children under eight for directions in another language through a jungle you’re unfamiliar with. Sure. Yeah, go ahead. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Ask them. You know?

 

Alison Leiby: Sure, guys. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Finally, eventually, Mathias looks around. He finds the path. Alison, the path has been covered with branches and fronds and all these things to try to block it as if someone does– 

 

Alison Leiby: Like– 

 

Halle Kiefer: –not want them to find the path. 

 

Alison Leiby: Like intentionally? 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yes, intentionally. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay that’s not great. 

 

Halle Kiefer: So– 

 

Alison Leiby: Like I’d see that and be like– 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yes. 

 

Alison Leiby: We shouldn’t do this. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Exactly. And both of the girls say this doesn’t seem right. Are we trespassing? Like it looks like okay, so the locals don’t want people to come through here. 

 

Alison Leiby: Also, like, of course, like women, like especially in like in a 2008 movie like this, like women–

 

Halle Kiefer: Yes. 

 

Alison Leiby: –being like, oh, it looks like there’s a boundary we’re not supposed to cross as somebody who has boundaries crossed all the time. I recognize that very clearly. Like and men are like, we should just do it. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And they’re like, no, no, it’s fine. 

 

Alison Leiby: It’s not fine.

 

Halle Kiefer: It’s probably the archeologists don’t want people to, like, come to the dig site and steal stuff. It’s like– 

 

Alison Leiby: But you like–

 

Halle Kiefer: Also, isn’t that what an archeologist is? 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: It’s like, aren’t they stealing stuff? 

 

Alison Leiby: Somebody who’s stealing. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Right. It’s like what we talking about? But as they not that all archeologists are doing that, just classically, historically white– 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –archeologists, are going to other–

 

Alison Leiby: White archeologists in nonwhite places, taking things that don’t belong to their culture. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Just taking shit.

 

Alison Leiby: And then making money off of them. So. 

 

Halle Kiefer: C’mon. But so they walk on into the path. And at last shot, we see Jeff looks back and we see the little girl of the pair looking at them. And the little boy runs off. And the little girl, well, she doesn’t look thrilled for them as they walk on, I’ll say that much. 

 

Alison Leiby: Ay, well. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Um. As they walk on Eric starts to signal that he also won’t be surviving this movie, he says, do you think those kids were Mayan? Didn’t all the Mayans die of some fucked up disease? So again, we know– 

 

Alison Leiby: Buh bye. 

 

Halle Kiefer: That he’s going to die. And he says we could be walking through an ancient graveyard right now. It’s like, well, you’ll be in a modern one soon enough, pal. I’ll tell you that. Um. But uh as they’re as they’re walking they finally arrive at the ruin, which is a sort of again this is American, a classic, sort of steeped flat top pyramid, covered in vines. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Um. We see Amy ask Jeff for her glasses. So she I guess she wears her glasses to shoot photos. She’s taking all these picturei. Mathias points to the top of the ruin and says, is that a tent up there? And we could see like the top of a yellow tent. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: But they don’t have time to answer before a Mayan man who I’m going to call say call them the Mayan leader. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Because he is sort of the first on the scene and seems to be directing the– 

 

Alison Leiby: Taking yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –other people who are going to be showing up. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay, great. 

 

Halle Kiefer: He arrives on horseback. The horse seems terrified and he starts screaming at them. He is screaming in a Mayan language. But you also don’t have to be fluent in any language to know that he’s telling you you have to leave. 

 

Alison Leiby: You can get the tone of what he’s asking very easily. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. And then just to add uh 6 million people speak a there’s a variety, there’s a Mayan language family um words spoken. It’s mostly spoken in Guatemala, but there are people in Mexico who speak it. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Um. In Guatemala, there are 21 Mayan languages that are recognized by name. In Mexico, they have eight. So there are people where Maya, Maya, people who would be speaking a language that these Americans, even if they knew Spanish, it wouldn’t– 

 

Alison Leiby: It wouldn’t. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Be–

 

Alison Leiby: Be the same. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah, they wouldn’t be able to communicate. That being said, body language, tone–

 

Alison Leiby: Tone. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Intention, context. 

 

Alison Leiby: Facial cues, all of these things transcend uh– 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. 

 

Alison Leiby: –spoken language. 

 

Halle Kiefer: The fact that a stranger has showed up and is screaming at you with in a tone of desperation, telling you you have to leave. I think that that that crosses all, all languages. Right. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes, agreed. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Unfortunately these Americans are not quick on the uptake, unfortunately. Um. Also, this is a full set they built and that Amazon noted that this is not accurate to Mayan ruins which have solid steps and this one has a little beveled top that sits on top. I’m like, Oh, that’s fun. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: That’s a fun note. Um. But they’re all sort of flummoxed. They’re like, what do you mean we can’t just come in here to anywhere in the world? Why would you have an opinion about that? But the Mayan guy, unfortunately, cannot tell them what he needs to know, which is you are in imminent danger if you stay here. Jeff, again, being a white American says maybe he wants money and he tries to offer him cash. The guy refuses. Well, trying to like, again, argue with them, convince them you got to– 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –get the fuck out of here. Mathias, meanwhile, sees the tent and is thinking, oh, Heinrich and the archeologists are on top of the ruins. So he’s, like, shouting hey like for his brother. Meanwhile, two more guys arrive on horseback, including a guy with a bow and arrow. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: They are also–

 

Alison Leiby: Once a weapon shows up. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yes. So they’re–

 

Alison Leiby: You know you’ve done something wrong. 

 

Halle Kiefer: So they’re very agitated. And Jeff says, Mathias show them the them the photo of your brother on your phone um and tell them we’re, try to see if we can do Spanish to try to talk to them, say like we’re looking for this guy. As he goes to show him the phone. Amy takes a photo of the Mayan men. They start shouting at her and–

 

Alison Leiby: No. No.

 

Halle Kiefer: The Americans start presuming, Oh, it’s for taking the photo. Alison, it’s not about the photo.

 

Alison Leiby: I mean. Probably not great to do that, but. 

 

Halle Kiefer: It’s just a little rude. 

 

Alison Leiby: It’s rude. 

 

Halle Kiefer: But no, Alison, Amy has stepped backwards onto the vines that are sort of uh draped off the ruins. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh no. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Dimitri runs over. He also assumes it’s the camera. He’s like, we’ll just give them the camera. We’ll just give them the camera. It’s fine. He runs over, grabs Amy’s camera and tries to offer it to the men. In doing so, he also steps onto the vines. 

 

Alison Leiby: Guys. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Allison when he steps off the vines to offer the Mayan guys the camera, one of them shoots an arrow through his chest. 

 

Alison Leiby: Whoa. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And the Mayan leader shoots Dimitri in the head, killing him. Obviously, the rest of the gang scatters screaming. And also the Mayan men look devastated. But also points, the lea atder points his gun at them, forcing them up onto the ruin. They are forced to climb up, Mathias is calling for Heinrich again, thinking he’s at the top. 

 

Alison Leiby: What? 

 

Halle Kiefer: And when they reach the top, which is larger than you think, like it’s a big flat top with sort of like stone buttresses and there’s a shaft in the middle of the ruin. So the archeological site is actually inside the ruin. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And there is an apparatus. So sort of like an old timey wooden crank with a rope that descends into the shaft. 

 

Alison Leiby: Nope. 

 

Halle Kiefer: You better believe we’re descending into the shaft Alison. 

 

Alison Leiby: I mean, you know, we’re going to descend. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And as somebody who loves shaft. I I honestly I think you’re gonna be pretty excited for what they find down there. 

 

Alison Leiby: Great thank you. [laughing]

 

Halle Kiefer: Um. They sort of look around. There’s they cannot find Heinrich and they cannot find his archeologist friend. So they start to be like, uh oh, things have gone from bad to worse as they’re they’re trying to strategize, try to figure out what the fuck is going on. Um. They say Mathias, can you call for help? Call 911, or whatever, whatever the Mexican equivalent is with your phone. And Heinrich [Halle means Mathias] says, when I was showing him the photo of my brother in the chaos, he grabbed my phone out of my hand. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh, good. So now we’re phoneless? 

 

Halle Kiefer: We are phoneless. Well, the other ones have phones, but they so they could use it for a flashlight, but they don’t have reception. 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And they are at the top of a ruin with abandoned tents. Heinrich is not there’s no one else here and a rope down the middle of the ruin. 

 

Alison Leiby: No no. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Time to strategize. 

 

Alison Leiby: No. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Jeff is the optimist and he will be the optimist throughout the the movie. He’s like, okay, the rest of the Greeks are supposed to come and they’ll come save us. And if they don’t, we’re supposed to check out tomorrow morning, the hotel will call the police. Amy is like, Oh my God, her flight’s tomorrow. Girl, don’t even worry about it, okay? 

 

Alison Leiby: I mean. I don’t think you need to worry about flying anywhere. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah, you have a lot of bigger issues coming. Stacy uh then goes to take a sip of water and Jeff snatches the bottle out of her hand. Eric’s like, Oh, I’m sorry. Do you get to decide when we get to drink water? Jeff says again he’s in med school or is going to med school. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: We all need a half a gallon a day to survive, just of water. Looking at what we have now, we don’t even have a day’s worth for all of us. So at least thank God he went to med school. You and I would just be drinking that water and die. 

 

Alison Leiby: I’d be chugging that water. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Alison, they suddenly hear a cell phone ring down in the shaft. 

 

Alison Leiby: No. 

 

Halle Kiefer: In the dig site [gasp] and Mathias says that’s my brother’s cell phone ring. He had a satellite phone. My phone wasn’t a satellite phone. 

 

Alison Leiby: So, like, he can have reception. 

 

Halle Kiefer: His phone will be able to call out. Yes, he will be. We will be, if we can get our hands on that phone, we can call out. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh, boy. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Alison, Mathias agrees to be lowered on a rope. 

 

Alison Leiby: Nope. 

 

Halle Kiefer: With a lantern, an old timey lantern into the darkness of the ruin. I would, of course–

 

Alison Leiby: No nope. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –immediately fall off the rope and my head– 

 

Alison Leiby: I–. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –would explode like a pumpkin. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: They’re lowering him in. God bless him. He’s a braver man than I and Amy looks up and sees that we don’t know how old this rope is, a part of it is frayed and rotted. And she screams, Jeff the rope. And as they all look– 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh no. 

 

Halle Kiefer: The rope snaps. 

 

Alison Leiby: No. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And Mathias falls the rest of the way to the ground. We can–

 

Alison Leiby: And that’s a long way. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And we hear the lantern shatter. It’s at least. I would say it’s like 75 feet. 

 

Alison Leiby: Several stories? 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Several stories. So he’s at least fallen. We’re presuming two or three stories. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. You’re not. No. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Well, spoiler we’re going to find out he is alive. He’s in bad shape, Alison. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay, not great. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Jeff says to one of the girls, One of you has to go down because Eric and I have to work the crank because you guys aren’t strong enough to work the crank, which I don’t believe in gender, but I I see in terms of having upper body strength. Jeff and Eric, are are winning. 

 

Alison Leiby: They, those two in particular probably more than– 

 

Halle Kiefer: Oh. 

 

Alison Leiby: –those two women. Not–

 

Halle Kiefer: Jeff is jacked. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Exactly. Oh, no. If listen, if I was there with two women who were Olympians. Absolutely. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: But again I would be dead weight. I I would be– 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –used as a decoy. 

 

Alison Leiby: I’d be like slowing them down I’d be like just kill me because otherwise you’re going to die. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. Just drink me, eat me. That’s fine. Um. Stacy agrees to go down using the remaining rope. So they’re using the same rope just afterwards, broken off. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Um. And they make a loop at the bottom, and then she kind of, like, sits one leg through and sits on the loop, which, again, is trusting a knot, which I have never done and I never will. And they this time she has a lantern’s electric lantern. I’m thinking if it doesn’t go all the way to the ground. What’s the plan? Right? 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: So, like, anywho we’ll, we’ll get into it. She’s able to get down, and there’s about a gap of about ten feet. Okay. So now she’s going to jump down. Then I’m like, but then how does she get back on the rope? I don’t get it. 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. I’d be like, pull me back up. 

 

Halle Kiefer: [?] they’re able to get her down a little bit further. So she has to jump, but it’s not nearly as high. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Let’s say it’s like a person’s height. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Unfortunately– 

 

Alison Leiby: I couldn’t do it. 

 

Halle Kiefer: When when she jumps down, she uh cuts her leg. 

 

Alison Leiby: Great. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Uh. She cuts her leg badly on the broken lantern glass. So when he when Mathias– 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh right. Because there is glass down there. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Exactly. And when Mathias falls and uh his lantern shatters. So then when she jumps down, which is like not an insignificant jump into the darkness, it’s not that far, but like terrifying.

 

Alison Leiby: Right but it’s still scary. 

 

Halle Kiefer: A piece of that lantern glass skewers her knee. 

 

Alison Leiby: Ugh. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And I like this because this is what would happen. This, it, like– 

 

Alison Leiby: Right that is accurate. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –these, we’re not, no one is super human. Yeah. If you and I did this, we would have stabbed our necks. 

 

Alison Leiby: I mean. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Even in the best case scenario. You are completely out of your element. And physically, no one can. You have no control over this. Of course you fell on to the glass. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: It’s totally dark down there. Luckily, her lantern did not break. And she calls up and says, Okay, Mathias, he can’t feel his legs. He also shit his pants, which means he’s paralyzed. Yeah. But again, that makes sense. He fell quite a distance. Jeff tells Eric, we have to build a backboard and pull him out. That’s again. You want a Jeff on your team. 

 

Alison Leiby: He’s looking for solutions. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Amy, meanwhile, is like, you cannot move a paralyzed person. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: If we move him, he will be permanently paralyzed. 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And she says, we have to go tell the Mayan villagers that someone has been badly injured and ask if they would please take him to get medical help, it’s the only option. And Jeff tells her they aren’t going to do that. And so Amy marches down the ruins to try anyways. Allison, if this was you, what would you do? [ominous scary music plays]

 

[theme segment music plays] What would you do? 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh, God. I mean, I think I would just run. I would just try and go ho–. I’d be like, I’m going to try and make it back to civilization. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. 

 

Alison Leiby: I don’t think you guys are going like we know that Mathias isn’t going anywhere. And it’s like, okay, well, like the Mayans probably aren’t going to help just based on the other interaction. So, like, I’d be like, I’m heading back out of the jungle, back toward our resort. Like, I can at least be like, here’s where we were. Like, find a ambulance or a police officer like to go back with you to, like, actually get help. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah, that’s even now we realize that’s really the only option. Unfortunately.

 

Alison Leiby: It really is the only logical thing to do because, like, you’re not going to get him out of there. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. 

 

Alison Leiby: Without making him worse. And that’s even if you can get him out of there. 

 

Halle Kiefer: No, no, totally. 

 

[AD BREAK]

 

Halle Kiefer: Amy reaches the bottom of the ruin. Uh. We see that there are more and more villagers, women are there, children are there. Pretty much everyone has showed up. 

 

Alison Leiby: The bottom of like the out like she’s like leaving. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yes. 

 

Alison Leiby: To go talk, okay got it. 

 

Halle Kiefer: So basically everyone from their village is forming a line, so there’s not really any place for her to run. So maybe before there were three guys, we figured they had both a gun and a bow and arrow, but maybe now they are. They are creating a human wall basically um to prevent them from leaving. We, of course, see that they have again, we can’t we can’t understand what they were saying, but we understand what they were saying, which is– 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes of course. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –basically get the fuck back on the ruin and they– 

 

Alison Leiby: Get the fuck back. Yeah.

 

Halle Kiefer: They shoot, they force Amy and Jeff back on. Amy’s sobbing. Um. They’re being forced back out on the ruin, but as they go. Amy is sobbing. She’s enraged and she screams at the Mayan people, why won’t you let us go? She grabs at the vines and rips off a chunk and hurls it at them just in blind anger. Alison. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: The vines hit a little boy. 

 

Alison Leiby: Uh oh. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And the Mayan men turn on him too, to try to force him onto the ruin. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay, so it’s the vines. 

 

Halle Kiefer: It’s the vines. Alison, when the little boy won’t go. The Mayan leader shoots and kills him while his mother screams and cries. 

 

Alison Leiby: Why do they still live so close to it? 

 

Halle Kiefer: And I said, I need to make a list of horror movies without children in them. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Because I didn’t know that part was going to happen. I did, I mean, I’ve seen this. I just forgot that part. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I blanked it out. Um. Amy and Jeff go back to the top and report their failure. And they say, how could they have done that? Jeff, again, he’s in med school. He says because he touched the vine. And so have all of us. And if that’s what this is, they’re not going to let us off. So we have to figure something else out. Down in the pit– 

 

Alison Leiby: Can they go down like the other side or is it not that big? 

 

Halle Kiefer: Well they never address that. But I think we’re supposed to believe that the villagers are surrounding the entire side. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I think the other side doesn’t have stairs. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Or so we’re to believe. Like, you kind of have to go out the front facing– 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –part of it. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: The rest is just like a rock wall. Um. Stacy is still in the shaft with Mathias, who is doing really badly. She hears the cell phone ringing again. She cannot find it, but she does hear what sounds like someone sort of scurrying around in the dark recesses of the room. 

 

Alison Leiby: No. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Alison, Jeff and company build a fucking backboard. [clapping] They do it. 

 

Alison Leiby: Wow. 

 

Halle Kiefer: They lower Amy down uh with it to help Stacy get Mathias onto it because he’s heavy. He’s heavy and they do have to lift him off the ground. It’s also nightfall, by the way, so it’s getting darker. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh okay great. So it’s dark. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. 

 

Alison Leiby: And the lantern is obviously destroyed. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And they’re able to extend like basically like undo the crank to the point where the rope is lower, but it’s still like three feet off the ground, which means Amy and Stacy have to pick up this paralyzed man. They’re not professionals to get him onto the backboard. So they’re trying to ar– and they’re just like college girls. And they’re just like, I mean I don’t know what their majors are but you know what I mean? 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: It’s not like, they’re paramedics and they’re like, if you lift him from the hips, it’s going to arch his back and they’re like, well, if I lift him from the shoulder, it’s going to he’s going to pitch forward. 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: So like, fuck it. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh God. 

 

Halle Kiefer: You know, Amy says, just grab his shoulders. Stacy grabs his knees. Alison, they pick him up. They fold this guy in half like a slice of New York pizza. [laughter] Like they fuck up immediately. And he screams in agony. But they do get him on the backboard and the guys are able to get him up. Uh. They make everyone makes it back up. They do another uh pick up for Stacey and Amy, and they say, let’s let’s not move. Um. Let’s not move Mathias again. We’re going to see if there’s some aspirin in the tents, any kind of painkillers. And he’ so he’s now on the backboard and there he’s not going they’re not going to move him into the tent. They’re just putting like blankets and stuff over him for the night. They go through all the backpacks and abandoned camping gear, they find the car keys to Heinrich’s car. So they know at least if they get back, there’s a car. So they really just–

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –have to get back to the beginning of the path like the two and a half miles. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes, which is a much more manageable– 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yes. 

 

Alison Leiby: –journey. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Absolutely. 

 

Alison Leiby: Well, I mean. [?]

 

Halle Kiefer: Well, we’ll find out, yeah. [laughter] Jeff finds Dimitri’s plane ticket. It was in uh Dimitri’s bag, which Mateus had been carrying. And he’s like, okay good, well, Dimitri, his flight was for 7 a.m., so when he doesn’t come back, his other Greek friends, even if they don’t come today. They’ll come tomorrow and we’ll all be saved, you know? So we just have to make it through the night. And you’re watching it like, Oh, buddy. 

 

Alison Leiby: No. No. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I don’t think so. 

 

Alison Leiby: That’s not how this is going to work. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Meanwhile, they’re in the tent. Stacy’s breaking down, blaming herself like I fucked up. We hurt Mathias. Like he’s paralyzed. It’s like, Girl, you can’t blame yourself for this one like– 

 

Alison Leiby: No. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –what were you supposed to do? 

 

Alison Leiby: No. It’s. I mean, everybody was kind of doing their best for a minute there. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And Jeff sort of takes Eric aside and is like, we just to make sure that we keep Mathias’s leg wound clean and covered. Because if he’s going to die, it’s because he’s going to get sepsis. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: He’s going to be, it’s going to become infected. 

 

Alison Leiby: Infected. 

 

Halle Kiefer: They were, and Eric says he’s not going to die up here. And Jeff looks at him he’s like, dude, yeah, he will dude. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Like– 

 

Alison Leiby: He’s probably going to. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –he’s horr– 

 

Alison Leiby: We all are. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Both of his legs are like, they’re his legs are so broken, you can see the bone. 

 

Alison Leiby: No. 

 

Halle Kiefer: That’s what I’m talking about. We’re not like broken legs contained with skin. Okay. 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: This is bone jutting through skin. 

 

Alison Leiby: Snapped in half. Yeah no.

 

Halle Kiefer: Bacteria, everything attacking it immediately. 

 

Alison Leiby: Mm mm mm mm mm mm. Yuckies.

 

Halle Kiefer: Amy, Amy calms Stacy down and tells her, goes to sleep. And they lay down after helping her, after she helps her uh Stacy wrap her leg wound. Because remember because she fell on the glass. 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Jeff looks down the ruin and sees the villagers. They’re burning fires all night. So they’re there all night watching. Just so in case it’s like– 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. They’re not going to like– 

 

Halle Kiefer: Exactly. 

 

Alison Leiby: –give it a chance. Yeah. Give them a chance to leave. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. In the morning, Jeff goes to pee in the vines and sees in the vines a wristwatch and then looks and it’s connected to an old desiccated corpse, sort of hidden among the leaves and vines which have these red poppy like flowers. 

 

Alison Leiby: Mm hmm. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Alison. Amy wakes up next to Eric with a gasp, and she pulls off her blanket, and a vine has crawled up her leg and into her leg wound, up under her skin. 

 

Alison Leiby: No. 

 

Halle Kiefer: She’s screaming of course. 

 

Alison Leiby: No. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Eric is pulling it out. Jeff runs in to help. Meanwhile, Stacy goes over to Mathias to give him like a glass of water and Mathias, who’s still somehow conscious. I– 

 

Alison Leiby: I mean. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –just think you’d go to shock. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And he says, please take off of my the blanket. I can’t feel my legs, but I feel like there’s something on top of them. Alison, she takes off the blanket. His legs are covered in vines that are growing into his leg wounds. 

 

Alison Leiby: No. 

 

Halle Kiefer: They’re all over. 

 

Alison Leiby: No no. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And they all look and they realize in in their sleep it looks like they have green mold forming on them. The vine is growing and [?]– 

 

Alison Leiby: Everybody or just those two? 

 

Halle Kiefer: All of them. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: It’s just on their skin, though. Like it’s like they’re able to clean that part off. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: By the two with wounds, the vines had already gotten inside them. 

 

Alison Leiby: No. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Alison, down in the shaft, the cell phone rings again. Jeff says, we got to fucking do this. Jeff makes torches out of like, blankets and kerosene, and both girls have to head down because again, they he and Eric have to use the– 

 

Alison Leiby: –run the crank. 

 

Halle Kiefer: The crank. And he’s like we have to find the fucking phone. That’s the only way that’s our only solution. Once they get down, they light their torches and they start creeping around in the horrible, airless dark of the ruin. To search inside. It’s also, by the way, the inside is also covered in vines, which they now– 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes of course. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –know can crawl inside your wounds. Right? Also the–

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. So don’t get hurt. 

 

Halle Kiefer: The vines look like marijuana leaves which I did think. 

 

Alison Leiby: That’s fun. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Like I’ve seen them. Like, Oh, that’s, if it– 

 

Alison Leiby: That’s fine. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –if it has just been weed, that’s funny. They find they turn a corner and they see what we assume to be the archeologists sort of crouched against the wall with their head against the wall. And for a moment, they wonder if she’s alive. 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: But of course they turn her over. Her eyes are dead white. It’s just a corpse. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: They grab her phone out of her hand, thinking, that’s the phone that’s ringing, but it’s cracked and dead. She is the woman we saw at the beginning of the movie. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. Great. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Alison. They hear the ringing again and they turn. The ringing is coming from the vines themselves. 

 

Alison Leiby: No no. 

 

Halle Kiefer: They’ve learned to imitate the sound to lure them down there. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh, my God. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And they have these red–

 

Alison Leiby: I hate these vines. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –these red poppy like blossoms that sort of vibrate and ring like a bell, creating the phone noise like it has learned these human sounds. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And when Amy reaches out to touch one, the vines lash out and grab both of them and start dragging them into the darkness, much like we saw happen to the archeologist. They’re able to escape back up to the rope, screaming, and the guys haul them up. They get up there. Eric kind of doesn’t believe them about the cell phone flowers. 

 

Alison Leiby: It’s like with everything that’s going on, like, [?]– 

 

Halle Kiefer: At this point Eric. 

 

Alison Leiby: The only thing that would make me feel like like think like Eric is like, we’re dehydrated. We are, you know. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. 

 

Alison Leiby: Starting to, like, lose our touch with reality. Like. Like not like oh, you’re making it up, but, like. Oh. It’s dark down there. You’re disoriented, like, what did you think? 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. 

 

Alison Leiby: But just believe them. Everything has been so terrible up until now. Just like, assume that whatever terrible stuff people are saying is happening. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah, um it’s it’s crazy. But also, like, does it matter? Because both of the women are like, okay, we’re leaving. We are going to we’re going to figure a way out of here. We cannot stay here. And Jeff’s Jeff’s saying, like again, the Greeks are going to come for us. The Greeks are going to come for us, and Eric says the Greeks couldn’t even find their own fucking hotel room. Also, the Greeks would immediately step on the vine like, why are we pretending like the Greeks wouldn’t do what you did? 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. Like, there’s no way for I guess if you screamed down to them not to do, but, like, you wouldn’t even know that they’ve arrived. And like, also the Mayan cult, like their civilization is– 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah, the Mayans– 

 

Alison Leiby: –going to intercept them and be like, no and and yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. Um. Amy screams, don’t you get it? We’re being quarantined here until we die. That’s what they’re doing, it it’s so– 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –that they don’t. And it’s true. It’s like instead of murdering all of them, they don’t want to. They’re just keeping us on here because they– 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –know that they have to. 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Because if we were to leave, we would be bringing something with us. Right? 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And then Jeff snaps, he’s like, this doesn’t happen for Americans. He didn’t say white, but it’s implied. Four Americans didn’t don’t just disappear on vacation and no one finds them. The police or the Greeks or our parents. Someone will find us. We just have to be alive when we do. 

 

Alison Leiby: Mhm. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And Eric asks Amy, where are the keys you found? Eric wants to be the one to make a run for Heinrich’s jeep. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: He’s like, I’ll just fucking go. Well if they kill me, they kill me. 

 

Alison Leiby: Well. 

 

Halle Kiefer: But. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay, but then we don’t have the keys and you’re dead. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yes, I agree. [laughter] Exactly. But Jeff argues them down to listen like, just let’s give us a little. We’ll just think about it. Okay, let’s everyone come up with an idea. Well, but clearly, time is running out, right? And time is definitely running out for poor Mathias, who’s looking worse and worse, frankly shocking he’s still alive. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: They all pool their snacks and each have, like, a pull of water. And when Jeff goes over to Mathis and they sort of erected like a they’ve used part of the tent to make like sort of a lean to over him. So he’s in shade. Um. Mathias is on his way out. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh. 

 

Halle Kiefer: This is this is his fight song. 

 

Alison Leiby: This alright. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Take back his right song and it is unfortunately, the sound of a vein, a vine imitating his brother’s cell phone. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Jeff takes a look at his wounds. And I love the way this is shot because you see Jeff lift up the blanket and you see the look of shock and horror on his face. But you don’t see the wounds. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh, thank God. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Like he he looks at it and then he recovers and he covers it back up, which I thought was like, very on character. Like a great way to shoot that. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Alison. He comes over to these motherfuckers. And he says Mathias’s legs are becoming are going to become septic. In order to help them survive, we have to amputate his legs. Alison could you, could you or would you? 

 

Alison Leiby: No. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And if you’re Mathias, I’m like, just let me die up here. 

 

Alison Leiby: Just kill me. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Me personally. 

 

Alison Leiby: Just kill me. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Just kill me. Do not amputate my legs. And Jeff’s thing is like he can’t feel them. But again, I don’t, even if you can’t feel it, I just like–

 

Alison Leiby:  I don’t think I am capable of– 

 

Halle Kiefer: Exactly. 

 

Alison Leiby: –amputating somebody’s leg. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it. And I wouldn’t want someone to have to do it to me. I would– 

 

Alison Leiby: No. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –just pass away. 

 

Alison Leiby: No. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Like I would and to me it’s like if you become septic. That’s horrible. And I’m sure it’s a horrible death. But I also think, like, won’t you become more septic when I have jagged– 

 

Alison Leiby: Bleed out? 

 

Halle Kiefer: –open fucking wounds? 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. Like you’re going to like–

 

Halle Kiefer: When you sever my fucking legs. 

 

Alison Leiby: What are the odds that then the amputated part won’t also then get infected after you’ve cut off. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. 

 

Alison Leiby: Like, I mean you would have to cauterize it, but it doesn’t even seem like they they could. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah, absolutely. Meanwhile, Stacy is convinced the vine, you know, Eric pulled it out, is still under her skin. So [?] now she’s starting to be like, I feel like uh I feel like it’s inside me. I feel like it’s um. I don’t know. I don’t know. And they’re like, yeah, we’ll deal with you in a minute. Amy. Okay. We got a oh I’m sorry, Stacy. We’ll get we’ll deal with you in a minute Stacy. And we’re dealing with Mathias’s thing and all them were like, okay, so we have no anesthesia. How will we do it? 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Jeff shows them he found a hunting knife in one of the tents. He says he’ll have to break through his leg, bones, cut off his legs, and then cauterize the wound with a heated up frying pan over the fire. And I said, let me go into a coma and die. 

 

Alison Leiby: Let me die. Throw me off, like, literally– 

 

Halle Kiefer: Throw me off. 

 

Alison Leiby: –hurl me off of the– 

 

Halle Kiefer: At this point. At this point. 

 

Alison Leiby: Just let me have head drama and like the be gone. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Carry me down and ask the Mayans to shoot me in the head. That’s what I would do. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. Yes.

 

Halle Kiefer: Just take me out, at this point. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: They take a vote. Jeff and Stacy vote towards amputation. The other, Eric and Amy say we’re not doing it. Finally, Mathias himself pipes up. 

 

Alison Leiby: A stalemate. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Mathias says, do it. Cut off my legs. Couldn’t be me. Unfortunately, Alison, we then see it happen. Jeff takes a stone, he has to breakthrough Mathias’s legs. Um. And as soon as he starts smashing Mathias’ legs, he starts screaming and he’s yelling, no, no. So the girls are like, he can feel it. And Jeff says, No, he’s just it’s just the shock of seeing it. He can’t feel it. He’s it’s just so distressing. It’s like– 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Either way, just let me die personally. They show all of it, right? Jeff does his messy business. The girls hide in the tent and try to cover their ears. And Eric holds Mathias down, because Eric is writh– Mathias is writhing. He’s panicking. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Finally, they’re finished. They amputate both of his legs below the knee. The girls emerge. Eric starts vomiting, as they turn around we see the vines dragging Mathias’s severed feet into the vines. 

 

Alison Leiby: What are they going to eat? The feet or something? 

 

Halle Kiefer: They’re going to eat the feet Alison. 

 

Alison Leiby: The vines eat the feet? 

 

Halle Kiefer: The vines eat the feet. 

 

Alison Leiby: That’s bad. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. 

 

Alison Leiby: [laugh] That’s so bad. [laugh]. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Night falls again. Stacy goes to sleep, still scratching at her her leg, convinced that the vine is inside her. Amy says to Eric, like, I think Stacy, Stacy thinks the vine is inside her and Eric says it’s not. It’s like, why would you– 

 

Alison Leiby: Why would you? 

 

Halle Kiefer: –think any of this at this point? But.

 

Alison Leiby: Like at this point, with everything that’s happened, like. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. 

 

Alison Leiby: Just [?] like to be safe, assume that that’s happening. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Um. And Amy says, do you think they’ll find us. And Eric says no. I think making a run for it is our only chance. And Amy breaks down sobbing and tells him, I know, I know it is. Stacy who is again starting to become unwell, unwell like mentally wakes up and here is Amy crying and Amy’s in Eric’s arms, but it’s platonic. But because Stacy is starting to get feverish, runs out and is like I heard you two fucking. I heard you. And he was like, I was just crying. I swear it’s like, Oh, are you kidding me? You think I don’t know what kind of person you are? Jeff runs out, and says, everyone calm down. We’re all under a lot of stress because the vines and the ruins and severing that guy’s legs. And Stacy turns and says, Oh, you think she’s never cheated on you? She was– 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh we’re getting into this! 

 

Halle Kiefer: I know I would have been I want to be there with like popcorn again. I would be again be. I’d be the corpse in the vine. 

 

Alison Leiby: I’d be dead. Yeah, I’d already be dead. I’m part of the ruins now. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Um. She says she would have slept with Mathias if I hadn’t stopped her. At the sound of Mathias’s name they all turn to be like, Oh yeah, fuck Mathias. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: They turn just in time to see the vines are thrusting down Mathias’s throat and dragging him out into the bushes, into the vines, consuming his entire body. 

 

Alison Leiby: No. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And all they can do is watch in horror as the vines eat him Alison. 

 

Alison Leiby: Believe us now, Jeff? 

 

Halle Kiefer: And Eric says, wow. Well, good thing we cut his legs off. Which I did think was very funny. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah that is funny. [laugh]

 

Halle Kiefer: Unfortunately, Stacy is now the one who’s doing worse and worse. And she grabs the hunting knife and she screams, it’s inside me. It’s crawling up my side. I need to cut it out. And they manage to stop her, but she screams, you’re not listening to me. And all the vines start imitating her and her voice is echoing back. So again, it’s like, well, now– 

 

Alison Leiby: What are all these vines? 

 

Halle Kiefer: –you believe. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah, right now, yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: They all just end up staying, they try to go to sleep. Of course, they’re just up all night. And at dawn, Amy and Jeff are sitting at the edge of the ruin, watching as the villagers start to salt the ground around the ruin. And he says, yeah, they’re salting it so the vine can’t spread. So they the reason they live nearby is to salt the earth. 

 

Alison Leiby: To make sure that the vine does not venture beyond where it already is. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Because it will essentially be able to kill all humans. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Basically. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh cool well great.

 

Halle Kiefer: So they are. Yeah, they are taking care of that’s like, you know, why they tried to cover up the path. That’s like– 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –why they’ve done all these things. Why they tried to talk to us. And he said, this must be so old. 

 

[clip from The Ruins] It has to be really old because the birds and the insects somehow they’ve learned not to land here. 

 

Halle Kiefer: They must all know not to come over here because they’ll be eaten by the vines, too. And Amy says, yeah, anyways, I wasn’t going to sleep with Mathias. And Jeff says, hey, it doesn’t matter now. 

 

Alison Leiby: It really doesn’t matter. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And he says, would it matter to you right now? And she goes, no. 

 

Alison Leiby: No. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And they–

 

Alison Leiby: Nothing matters. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And they have a moment. 

 

Alison Leiby: The vines are in charge. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah, where it’s like we do love each other. 

 

Alison Leiby: That’s nice. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And um I mean it’s nice to spend these last moments with you. Just then Eric emerges from the tent and says, guys, we have a problem. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh. 

 

Halle Kiefer: They go– 

 

Alison Leiby: Now there’s a problem? 

 

Halle Kiefer: And Stacy shows them the vine is visible under her skin, squirming like a worm up her side [disgusted sound] from her thigh. So now they have to perform surgery on Amy. Alison, who will survive? 

 

[theme segment music plays] Who will survive? 

 

Alison Leiby: No one. No one will survive. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Well. 

 

Alison Leiby: I believe they are all going to die. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Um. Yeah, I mean I think you know, I think you know where we’re headed with this. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Uh. 

 

Alison Leiby: There’s just no way. There’s no way that, like, somehow this wraps up with, like, Eric getting away or something. Like, it’s not no. They’re all dead. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Well, we’ll find out won’t we Alison? 

 

Alison Leiby: I guess we’re going to. 

 

[AD BREAK]

 

Halle Kiefer: They pour alcohol, sorry the remaining alcohol on Amy’s leg and they cut open her, her uh knee and they pull out one of the vines successfully, Jeff then cuts into her side and pulls out a huge fucker like it’s like it looks like a snake from inside of her body while Stacy screams. But she survives and the vines are now out. They have been there–. 

 

Alison Leiby: For now. 

 

Halle Kiefer: They have been there two entire nights. This is the third day they’re there. They have basically no supplies left. They’re covered in blood because there’s no water anywhere to wash, where are they pissing and shitting? They don’t address it, but, you know, their pisser and shitter is, shitting somewhere. 

 

Alison Leiby: I think that I would piss and shit down the um shaft. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I think. I think that’s a great idea. I think you would have ordered the Alison special two times over. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh. I would have been gone. I’d still be on the beach if we’re being perfectly honest. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Exactly no, we would have never or at least–

 

Alison Leiby: We would actually survive this movie because we would have never gone with them. I could see getting to the ruin but the second the Mayan guy shows up, I’d be like, we we’re leaving. Sorry. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. Let’s turn around. 

 

Halle Kiefer: That’s our bad. My bad. 

 

Alison Leiby: Let’s turn around, let’s turn around.

 

Halle Kiefer: We’re going. I’m not fucking standing there, taking his photo like a maniac. 

 

Alison Leiby: No. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Um and they they’re passing out their grapes, and their hands are all covered in blood. So they basically all have one grape, and that’s their last food. 

 

Alison Leiby: I do not want my last meal to be one grape. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah, nobody wants their last meal to be one grape Alison. But here we are. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Um. Yeah. What is it, [?] where he would eat like seven almonds or whatever it’s like. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. No. 

 

Halle Kiefer: You got to go out big. But Stacy is even more agitated and keeps telling them, I think there’s one more vein. It’s under the muscle. It’s near the bone. I need to cut it out. It’s in my head. So she’s losing her mind and she tries to grab– 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –the knife again. But Jeff pulls it away and says, Hey, hey, let’s take a break and Stacy gives her a shot like from the dwindling liquor liquor bottle. And when she does, the rest of them see a vine wriggling under the skin of her forehead. 

 

Alison Leiby: No. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And they all at this point because they’re so tired have horrible poker faces, they’re all like, Oh, like they all like– 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. Right it’s like– 

 

Halle Kiefer: –they can not like, not react to it. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: It’s so funny. 

 

Alison Leiby: The like the masking is gone like– 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. 

 

Alison Leiby: There’s no energy for it anymore. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. And she says, you saw it didn’t you? You saw it. And she says, Amy, look at me. And Amy’s like uhh. I can’t do it. And Eric says, look, let’s be, let’s cut the shit. Nobody’s coming for it. When night falls, I’m gonna make a run for it, and we’ll, I’ll come back for you. We have to do something. I’m going to. I’ll do it first, and I’ll see how far we can go. Alison, they all go to sleep in the same tent. They’re all kind of, like, snuggled up together. Stacy, who is fully in her underwear at this point, it is hot as hell. So I mean. You know, no shame. Wakes up and sneaks out of the tent and she goes to get the hunting knife. And as she listens, she hears the vines sort of mimic back to her what she said earlier. I want to cut it out of me. I want to cut it out of me. Alison, the others wake up, it’s dawn now to the sound of sobbing. 

 

Alison Leiby: No. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Oh I’m sorry. No, no, sorry. This was they went to sleep during the day, so taking a nap because it’s so hot. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: So the others wake wake up to the sound of sobbing, and they walk out to see Stacy cutting her body apart. She has cut her thigh up, cut her forehead open, and she is rooting around on her side with the knife. 

 

Alison Leiby: No no. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Saying, I just have to get out one more. I know this look bad but I there’s just one more that I just got to get it out. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh, no. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Jeff goes for it, tries to get the knife from her and she slashes at him, basically like she’s out of her mind, slashes him to be like, don’t touch the knife. Eric tries to take the knife from her then, and she turns screaming and stabs Eric dead in the chest. And it’s not an accident. But also she’s she’s deranged like she is. 

 

Alison Leiby: She’s yeah, she’s lost like the vines are in charge. 

 

Halle Kiefer: But obviously it wasn’t intentional. She sobs, Eric, Eric. But it’s I mean literally right through his chest. 

 

Alison Leiby: I mean, you stab somebody in the heart. That’s kind of it. 

 

Halle Kiefer: He falls to the ground. She’s sobbing over his body and she begs, Amy, kill me. Just kill me. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: It’s inside me. Just kill me. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And the vines start echoing her like all the vines are sort of like parroting back, like, kill me. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh my God. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Just kill me. Dri– Like, chattering, driving them insane. And we see Jeff pull the knife out of Eric’s torso, and we cut to, again, a lot of really tasteful shots, like, terrified, but well done. And we see the villagers are listening to Amy screaming distantly, kill me. And then the cream, the creaming, [laugh] the creaming is definitely stopped. And now the screaming has abrup, has abruptly cut off. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And now it’s just Amy and Jeff left, and he smears– 

 

Alison Leiby: Suicide pact, baby. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. Finally. Exactly. Amy and Jeff. It’s just them left. And they have a plan, Alison. He takes Stacy’s blood and Eric’s blood and starts smearing it all over Amy, her torso and her face. And he tells her, once you’re past the clearing, just run. And if the keys to the jeep don’t work, just run. Just keep moving. They can’t get you. Okay? 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. A horse is going to catch you, but okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I mean, I agree, but I guess can a horse run through the jungle. It is kind of rocky and, like, uneven. So I don’t know. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh I guess if you’re in the jungle, maybe you could. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Right like, once you hit the road. 

 

Alison Leiby: Manuever more? 

 

Halle Kiefer: Absolutely. Um. And she says, I need you to promise that you will still be alive when I get back. And Jeff’s like yeah, sure. Like, obviously, no. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. Okay, I promise. [laugh] 

 

Halle Kiefer: Um. So as we watch the villagers see Jeff carrying Amy’s body down and he’s smeared it with blood to make it look like she’s a corpse. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And he brings it down, and now he’s acting insane, and he’s like, he kisses her goodbye, and he’s shouting at the villagers. Like, my name is Jeff. And as he distracts, distracts them with, like, hysterical ranting, which I’m assuming– 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –the villagers have seen before, he starts to walk laterally along the ruin, drawing them away from Amy. 

 

Alison Leiby: Where she’s going to okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Exactly. He’s like, you should know my name. 

 

Alison Leiby: It’s not a bad plan. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I was going to. I’m from um [?] Illinois. I was going to be a doctor. That’s all I wanted in this world andt this is how it’s going to end. And so he’s successfully drawing them away from her. And he said: 

 

[clip of Jeff from The Ruins] You should know her name to, [shouting] her name is Amy. 

 

Halle Kiefer: She leaps up as the villagers shoot Jeff full of arrows, killing him. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And we see, as the vines drag Jeff towards the ruin. The Mayan leader comes to him and shoots Jeff in the head to put him out. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: You know. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah, Just. Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Which I would appreciate if I was him. 

 

Alison Leiby: I appreciate that a lot. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Alison. Amy makes it into the jungle. Everyone’s chasing her, obviously. She’s able to get to the jeep, and miraculously, it starts, and she drives erratically over fields. But she’s still going. And we see her pass a road sign onto an actual road. Meanwhile, our last shot, we see the two of the Greeks finally arriving at the ruins like two or three days later. The villagers are gone. But they approach the ruin and they call up to the they see the top of the yellow tent, they say, Dimitri. The end. 

 

Alison Leiby: The villagers are gone. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I think they’re just gone chasing down Amy. Like, I think it’s like they happened to be gone– 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –at that moment. 

 

Alison Leiby: I see. Yes yes yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: But they’re not gone permanently. 

 

Alison Leiby: So there’s nobody there to, like, provide– 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yes. 

 

Alison Leiby: –kind of like, hey, no. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah don’t fucking do this. Alison, what are some fatal mistakes these people may have made in the movie The Ruins? 

 

[theme segment music plays] Fatal mistakes. 

 

Alison Leiby: I mean, don’t fuck with ruins. Like it’s such a hard thing because, like, I very much, and like, if you were going to travel to another place, I think that, like, actually participating and seeing, like, one another, like, not just staying on the compound of a resort in another country, like, but then it’s like how, what is the line between you know, seeing things that will open up, you know, your personal experiences and seeing a history or a culture that you’re not familiar with versus possibly harming that culture or taking advantage of that culture. Like, that line feels very blurry to me. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. 

 

Alison Leiby: In a lot of places. Um. So but, you know, going to those ruins and then um you know, from there. What could you do? 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah, I think once yeah. Once you stepped on the vines, every they all did the best they could. 

 

Alison Leiby: It’s over. I think, like, once you so like, once you get out there and you’re like, this is all blocked off and then like, you see some, like, wary children, I’d be like, you know what? Let’s just go back to the resort. 

 

Halle Kiefer: You know, I would I want to say a mistake would be the Mayans not erecting a um sign. 

 

Alison Leiby: Warning? 

 

Halle Kiefer: Like just say like whatever like uh nuclear testing or I don’t know, like I don’t– 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Not that people wouldn’t come through anyways– 

 

Alison Leiby: If there’s just a giant X on a sign. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –but some sort of like toxic area or like, you know, like claim there’s the vines are poisonous or something but then it’s like– 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah anything. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Well who’s funding that, who’s going to fund a fence? You know what I mean, it’s not like– 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: –they’re– 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: That’s very presumptuous of me to say that they should be. 

 

Alison Leiby: That it’s their job. Yeah. Right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. Um. Other than that, I guess don’t– 

 

Alison Leiby: Once they were in it. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. What can you? They all did the best they could. 

 

Alison Leiby: They were just doing stuff. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. Um. And then where would you place uh the Ruins on the spooky scale Alison? 

 

[theme segment music plays] The spooky scale. 

 

Alison Leiby: I think this is like a six and a half. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Mm hm. 

 

Alison Leiby: Maybe even a seven, because, like, again. It’s like there is once you’re in it there kind of is no real way out. And you’re just kind of navigating how you’re each going to die. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. Yeah, I feel. Yeah, it it really got me. Obviously it’s like, look, cannibalistic vines. Sure. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah not realistic, but everything else is played super realistically and that fuck it’s when you see him have to amputate that guy’s legs. 

 

Alison Leiby: No. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Woo. Um. I feel– 

 

Alison Leiby: No thank you. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I’m going to give it a five. 

 

Alison Leiby: Five? Yeah, that feels right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I’m going to give it a five. But a really fun watch. I really enjoyed this. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I enjoyed it the first time I saw it and I enjoyed it again. Um. Yeah, Al, well, thank you so much for listening, everybody. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Um. 

 

Alison Leiby: Another fab vacation story. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. I hope we hope you get to have some kind of vacation or relax. At least grill out. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I need to finally, I keep thinking I’m going to buy a grill. I need to just buy a grill. I feel like it will fix my whole life. 

 

Alison Leiby: I had the Weber like the the just the plain black like classic charcoal Weber that, like, isn’t wildly expensive. I got it at Home Depot. And uh when I didn’t have a backyard anymore, I gave it to Natasha. She uses it all the time. It’s a fabulous grill. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. Okay, great. Yeah, I’m just gonna get a Weber for sure. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. Just get, like, the classic. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. 

 

Alison Leiby: You don’t need anything fancy. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Um. Well, everyone– 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah so. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Thank you for listening. Um. We love you very much. 

 

Alison Leiby: We love you very much. Uh. Aliens, if you’re listening, uh please just blow up the earth. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Show up, you fucking gray bitches. 

 

Alison Leiby: Stop hiding gray bitch. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. [laughter] I’m now like what if it’s [?] like. It just um what if it’s something we can’t comprehend? You know, what if it’s sort of a cthulhu situation where– 

 

Alison Leiby: I’m sure it is something we can’t comprehend? I’m sure that’s exact like– 

 

Halle Kiefer: Well give us a chance. 

 

Alison Leiby: We’re not. 

 

Halle Kiefer: We’ll try. 

 

Alison Leiby: I don’t understand anything. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah we’re dumb. 

 

Alison Leiby: What you think I’m going to understand something like an intergalactic being and technology that I like I can barely use my computer. It’s you know? 

 

Halle Kiefer: Also, what do their genitals look like you think? 

 

Alison Leiby: I’m curious. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Just fucking huge hogs. 

 

Alison Leiby: I mean, I would hope so. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah, well um. Our lips to God’s ears. And in the meantime, uh until the aliens land. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Everyone, please. 

 

Alison Leiby: Please. 

 

Halle Kiefer: We ask you. 

 

[spoken together] Keep it spooky. 

 

Alison Leiby: Don’t forget to follow us at @ruinpodcast and @crookedmedia for show updates. And if you’re as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us a review. Ruined is a Radio Point and Crooked Media production. We’re your writers and hosts, Halle Kiefer and Alison Leiby. The show is executive produced by Alex Bach, Sabrina Fonfeder, and Houston Snyder, and recorded and edited by Kat Iossa. From Crooked Media our executive producer is Kendra James with production and promotional support from Ari Schwartz, Kyle Seglin, Julia Beach, Caroline Dunphy, and Ewa Okulate. [music break]

 

[AD BREAK]