It’s a beautiful day out, and this week’s episode of Someone Else’s Movie is here to ruin it.

Not that the episode is a bummer or anything, but my guest — genre filmmaker Perry Blackshear, whose moody new thriller When I Consume You just slithered out on VOD — picked Mike Flanagan’s extremely grim 2011 breakout Absentia, a horror movie rooted in despair, isolation and misery. Perry saw it at a key stage in his own evolution as a storyteller, to the point that When I Consume You plays almost as an answer film to it, and we get pretty deep into both heavy emotions Flanagan’s work brings out of Perry and the compassion for emotionally damaged characters that connects their cinematic realms.

And that makes for a dark but worthwhile conversation, even if my mic was somehow miscalibrated throughout, resulting in a weird mechanical growl that runs through most of my side of the conversation. I did my best to minimize it, but it’s there, like a gnawing awareness of mortality or something. Try to tune it out.

Wanna listen? Subscribe at Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher or wherever and get the episode instantly,  or download it directly from the web if you’re afraid of a podcast player suddenly becoming sentient and snatching you into the ether. I hear that happens.

And then you should check out the latest editions of Shiny Things, in which I have thoughts on the finale of Better Call Saul and the end of the Breaking Bad cinematic universe, take a look at the Blu-ray release of David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future and celebrate the pure uncut joy of watching Tatiana Maslany in Marvel’s She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. Have you subscribed? You can do that here!

Oh, and if you were wondering how things at TIFF are going? Pretty great! Both of my programming projects — the Festival @ Home digital slate and the Industry Selects market screening series — were announced over the last few days, and I’m very happy with the way they worked out. You’ll be hearing more about them both in the weeks to come, I’m sure.

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