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March 9, 2023 50 mins

Hunter writes in with some harrowing first-hand experience fighting Super Pigs. An email inspires a deeper exploration of time traveling, subatomic particles. Ben, Matt and Noel discuss horror films. All this and more in this week's listener mail segment.

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio. Hello, welcome back to the show. My

(00:25):
name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called me Ben.
We're joined as always with our superproducer Alexis codenamed Doc
Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you. You are here,
and that makes this the stuff they don't want you
to know. We always like to say you are here
because we hope you are. And we are very excited
today to introduce you to several of our fellow conspiracy realists.

(00:50):
We are going to We're going to talk about the
possibilities of time travel, which is always a trip for us.
Check out our earlier episodes on that. There's some fantastic
news that one of our one of our pals has
hipped us to. We're also going to talk horror movies
because we love them. We exist in the land of

(01:14):
Eternal Halloween and have no regrets nor compunctions about that.
But before we do any of that, Matt Noel code
named Doc Ben. Oh okay cool. Also, we had a
we had a lot of people. I think we hit
a porsign nerve when we talked about super pick. Porsign right,

(01:37):
doesn't sound like pig, but that's yes, yes, So why
don't we open up with an excellent series of emails
from one fellow conspiracy realist who chooses to go by
the code name Jagermeister. And before we before we get
into this, uh gotta tell you, but you brought up

(02:00):
some really intense sense memories when we heard your code name,
because Gagermeister is a period in our collective lives that
I don't think any of us are in a hurry
to relive memory. Indeed, taste out of my mouth. I know,

(02:22):
I remember. I remember personally, many years ago, I was
dating a girl whose father looked exactly like Charles Manson,
and he lived in a little trailer in a rural airfield.
It's a very different time, and his thing was Yeagermeister,
and so we could hang out and drink. I'm gonna

(02:44):
be honest, we were not drinking age. We could hang
out and drink with this guy, but only if we
drank Yeagermeister or Goldschlager, which you would accept as a substitute. Yeah,
that should be considered a crime against humanity. Well, it's
definitely a crime to give underage children boots. Been generating
insult to injury, you know, I mean something, Give him

(03:04):
something good. This is why I don't talk too much
about my personal life. I feel like everything I say
just makes things sound increasingly sketchy. But with this in mind, Jagermeister,
We're gonna go with your code name, and we invite
you to explore other alcohol expirits. You know, the world
is yours, be the change bro. Okay, So here's what

(03:26):
jager Meister says. Hey, guys, First off, just wanted to
say I love the show. My name is Hunter or
code name Yagermeister. Feel free to use either name honestly, respectfully.
I think I'm probably gonna go with Hunter. I recently
got into listening to podcast at work, and you Alls
is one of the first I found. I am a
heavy equipment operator, so I'm able to listen to about

(03:48):
five to six hours worth of episodes a day, and
I have officially purchased my first vacation home in the
rabbit Hole. Pretty neat got a time share there myself,
right right, And so Hunter says, Anyways, the reason I'm
emailing you all is because I just listened to the
strange new segment about super pigs. I live in Oklahoma,

(04:09):
and the wild pig problem is out of hand. We've
got about fifteen hundred acres of land in southeast Oklahoma
that we used primarily for hunting, fishing, camping, etc. On
the property, we have five pig traps, which Hunter has
emailed us photos of these. We have about five pig

(04:29):
traps equipped with game cameras that are connected to an
antenna that will send an image straight to our cell
phones anytime there is movement. The coolest part is that
the traps are connected as well. So for instance, if
we are at home, which is seventy miles or so away,
and we receive an image of pigs in the trap,
we're able to drop the trap and contain them with

(04:51):
the push of a button. Side note this is something
we'll go back to when we're talking about this, usually,
says Hunter. We place a pile of corn in the
middle of the trap, and it's not unusual to trap
thirty to forty pigs at a time. At this point,
it's just a matter of disposing of the pigs in
the easiest way possible. Some people may see this as harsh,

(05:15):
but if you ever come into contact with one of
the larger pigs that have four to five inch tusk,
I feel you'll change your mind pretty quick. Just to
show how bad it is, we trapped and killed over
three hundred hogs from our property alone each year for
the past three years. It's nine hundred pigs for those
of us playing along at home. They cause tremendous amounts

(05:38):
of damage to the terrain, to crops, to wildlife and
desperately need to be eradicated. I'll share some pictures for
reference in a separate email to put this into perspective.
Like I said, I love the show and you guys
do a great job covering all sorts of topics keeping
it interesting. Well. Thank you a hunter. First off, first questions.

(05:59):
When we were talking about super pigs, did you guys
do any any digging, any like, any rooting? Yeah? Any
truffle up after we talked about this, Yeah, I sent
my dogs out and they were unsuccessful. It was you
who let the dogs out. It was in fact it
was me. I take full responsibility. Uh. Yeah, you gotta

(06:21):
be careful with them. Dogs, the guys I referenced a lot,
and I always forget their individual names with the Internet
today YouTube guys who are awesome. They did a kind
of follow up on the story and talked about I
think seeing some footage or maybe it was just a
description from a hunter who like unloaded on one of
these things and like it just kind of kept running

(06:41):
at them, like they finally did manage to kill one
of them. But it's like they're so fatty and they're
high is so um you know, tough that they practically
can deflect bullets right right, which we talk about a
little bit in our previous Strange News segment on this
the sheer tenacity and toughness of these creatures. Of course,

(07:06):
I've said it before, We've all said it before on
the show. We pretty much love to some degree every
living organism. You know, some things aren't our favorites, you know,
I know, sloth screep, some people out Noel doesn't cotten
the birds, and I you know, I feel sorry for possums.
I'll say it. That's a weird one. But but these

(07:30):
animals are a huge threat to the North American continent
and our pal Hunter code named yeagermeister hit us up
with photographs of some recently killed hogs on their land
and also showed us a picture in the trap, and
when Hunters sent us the next email, they said, these

(07:52):
are pictures of a hog I killed from a dear blind.
For anybody who's not familiar with hunting, that is a
spot where you can you can set up and wait
for the parade to come to you. Hunter says, you're
not blind. The deer is blind, right, your present right right.
And Hunter does something that we love, which is giving

(08:14):
us photographic evidence with a clear way to get a
sense of perspective. So Hunter says, just for reference, that's
my size thirteen boot next to this animal's head. I
am a large man, six foot three, three fifty pounds,
and it took everything I had to drag it into

(08:34):
the woods. My best estimate would be that this weighs
between three hundred and fifty and four hundred pounds. To
your question earlier, they are extremely tough animals. Hunter says,
it took three shots to kill this hog, and two
of those were headshots, and it just kept going. That's insane.
I mean again, we reference Game of Thrones. I think

(08:56):
our song of ice and fire in the previous discussion
aber this too, because that's what killed spoilerler. I guess
Robert Barathian. He was an avid war hunter and yeah,
I mean those things are no joke, even like the
regular ones. He got Stove in in that show. Yeah, yeah,
yeah Stove. But the issue is that we've received correspondence

(09:19):
from multiple people across multiple platforms who are saying, yes,
this is a real problem. And I went over on
Twitter when I saw a couple of friends on there
saying that they feel like they owe an apology to
that forty to fifty Ferrell Hogs guy from so long ago.
And you know what, we mentioned this previously, but you

(09:42):
know what, folks, that apology might be deserved at this point,
because these things are a menace, and not in a cool,
wholesome Dennis the Menace way, like there really is there
really are, I should say, symptoms of tremendous ecological shifts
on a paradigm level, and these creatures are part of it.

(10:06):
I feel like it's very cold to say that they
have to be eradicated. But I don't know about you,
Matt Noel code named Doc. I am tempted to agree
with hunter here, attempted, indeed perhaps convinced. Yeah, these things
seem absolutely terrifying. We had on the ground reports I

(10:29):
saw about just how quick they are as well, because
they're quite clever. So there are some there are some
forms of traps that are not fast enough to catch them.
The way I heard it described by one person with
experience who doesn't want to go on record, was that
they they had kind of like a corral or what

(10:52):
was it you mentioned it last time last week, Matt,
the Judas, Yeah, the pig. Yeah, So apparently the Judas
pig is still kind of dodgy because when that when
that trap drops, the group of super pigs is fast
enough and alert enough to immediately pivot and a lot

(11:13):
of them escape before the thing drops, So like one
they see one frame of movement and they're out the door. Wow,
that's impressive reaction. Time was just sending in a rogue
pig right to find them all Okay, and then there's
a specific trap that you would use because you have
to get you have to get the group. And um,

(11:34):
like we said previously in our weekly Strange News segment,
we're hitting the road for some stuff that's a bit
of a secret projects as a group, a series of
secret projects. So we're going to keep this a little
bit short, but keep your superpig stories coming. Tell us
about more invasive species, and we do have to give

(11:56):
one bit of regrettable news for for all of us
who have the same question when you're listening last week,
is the bacon good? Now? I know that's a petty
question because we're talking about ecological collapse, we're talking about
the very dangerous invasive species. But we are you know,

(12:17):
we're bacon lovers. So we asked that question, and everybody
who has written to us has answered unanimously. There is
a consensus. We'll go to a hunter again. Do not
eat the pigs. The meat is super tough, It tastes horrible,
It has a smell that is quote amazingly off putting.
So we're not even getting bacon out of this. This

(12:39):
is why earlier crow. Yeah, are you kidding me? Are
you kidding me? Of course we're getting bacon out of this. Look,
if it comes down to it, that gaby off putting
smell and taste is gonna be delicious to you. I've
eaten Duryan. Actually there doesn't. Durian taste good. It just
smells gross. It's the smell. Mainly, it's the smell. And actually,

(13:01):
I wouldn't be surprised if as covid removed a lot
of people's olfactory abilities, if Durian became more popular. And hey, Matt,
I think we're on the same page. One super COVID's here.
That's gonna be the best thing you've ever tasted in
your life, I promise. So this also reminds me one

(13:22):
more question, folks, tell us your invasive species stories, because
I've been looking into this. The pig story. Really it
got to me, man, and I started looking at the
history of invasive species like starlings in the United States,
certain types of fish and so on. And I think

(13:43):
about this when I'm abroad and I see countries having
very very strict laws about what can be taken in
or out of their environments. And I'm starting to think
there's a stuff they don't want you to know episode here.
But for that we need your help. Let us know
about evasive species in your neck of the global woods,

(14:03):
and uh, you know, let us know the weirdest thing
you've ever eaten. Because I think it's safe to say
we're omnivores right here. Did you guys ever have any
any lines, any dietary lines where he said, no, I'm
not going to try it. I mean I've I've started
to think a little bit better of eating cephalopods just
because they're, you know, so intelligent and they feel pain.

(14:27):
I mean, I'm sure most species feel pain, but it
seems a bit on the cruel side. So and no
more porpo for me. Yeah, I hate it. The last
I remember the exact day. The last day I ate
an octopus was I think March it was March twenty
was March twenty nineteen. Now, if you have to eat

(14:50):
something to survive, then I'm of the mind that you
absolutely should. Taboos be damned. But but if you can
avoid it, yeah that's nice. What about you, Matt. Thing
you've eaten, weird thing I've eaten? Musical? Yeah, I don't.
I don't have many things to say. Honestly, I kind
of steer clear of the stuff that is off putting

(15:13):
to me. That doesn't mean I'm not an adventurous eater,
because I love new flavors and new combinations. Yeah, I'm
not down. I don't, I don't know, I'm okay. With
being a little bit ignorant of like delicacies and other cultures.
I'm kind of okay with that, sure. And the reason
nola Is is referencing the spice is because we've been

(15:33):
on the road together and we've seen Matt negotiate with
restaurants to make sure that they understand he can take
the full amount of heat. Happened on Monday. I went
and got some what do they call pablano ranos? I
think that's what they Yeah, it is chili rano, but
it was specific type at this restaurant near me, and

(15:54):
to talk to the guy who I think was the
manager maybe part owner. We were just talking and he's like, oh,
you like see stuff. I was like yeah, And he said,
I just made this this special oil and spice mixture
and I'm gonna give you some. Okay, that sounds awesome.
Leave wait for a little while, come back in, pick
up my food. He gives me one of these small

(16:15):
like mason jars. It's a tiny little mason jar and
it is filled to the brim with chili oil and
peppers and stuff. Guys sweating just thinking about it. And
it was heaven. It was amazing. No, it is also
amazing too. I don't know about you know, but for me,
it's amazing to watch Matt eat spicy food. It's like

(16:38):
very um tears fall, the mucus comes out, and I'm
just smiling. Yeah, you look weirdly like you got a
rictest grin or you look very stoic. And then and
we'll send us messages from beyond the Scovill scale. You'd
be a great hot Ones guest. Matt. Yeah, no, agreed, agreed,
except for where you have to be interviewed about interesting

(17:00):
stuff you've done because whoops, sorry, oh you know what
we're going to it. We're going to an ad break
and if the h if the super Pigs don't get us,
we'll be back with more messages from you, like bust
through the door. That's that's how we end the episode.
Ray and we're back, and we're going to a message

(17:31):
sent to us from I guess we call this person Sammy. Okay, yep,
it's a message from Sammy, and Sammy. I'm going to
read the little insert you put at the top of
this message because I think it's funny, and we're going
to analyze it. Quote insert. I believe this email accounts
nominal purpose is to make Google's information scratching software as

(17:53):
suspicious as possible about who I'm emailing. That's, of course
a reference to conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com. I'm religious,
I remember you, Sammy. Yeah, yeah, it's like, oh, we're
just gonna send an email to a thing called conspiracy
at something. Oh boy, all right, well that was not

(18:17):
the purpose. It was a shortened version of stuff they
don't want you to know. That wasn't also Studwick at
Gmail or whatever. So did we to our earlier conversation
about acronyms? You know, who are we to judge at
this point? Exactly? Didwick? So, yeah, conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot

(18:37):
com is what you got. You're continuing here, Sammy. Anyway,
Australian and Spanish scientists have discovered how to manipulate time
for subatomic particles. Mind you, it's nothing as buck wild
as conventional time travel. But I believe we're seeing the
birth of a brand new technological field. And then Sammy
sent us two articles. A popular mechanics article. Well we'll

(19:01):
start there and then we'll go to the next one.
The Popular Mechanics article is titled Scientists discovered how to
speed up time. Seriously, Seriously, we can reverse it too.
That's the subtitle. It's written by Darren or if it
was published on the twenty third of February twenty twenty three. Guys,
we are entering into a realm here, much like the

(19:24):
time crystals, much like other subatomic particle topics that we've
covered in the past that are just beyond my meager
understanding of the world. It's physics how everything functions. But
we're going to try and get through this one because
this is a fascinating topic. Sammy, thank you for bringing
this to our attention. I'm going to start with a

(19:46):
bit of an analogy here, and it's something that is
done in popular mechanics, because it did help me get
a bit of an understanding. Imagine the way a film works.
A movie when you go of the movie theater, you
are sitting in a theater and the film is just
projected in front of you. The film begins at its

(20:08):
starting point wherever that reel is the first previews or
an entire movie itself, depending on how many reels it is.
It plays out through its entirety, and then it ends
after the credits and it's done. Okay, all right, imagine
that is time as we experience it, moving, just moving

(20:30):
forward through it. It begins when you're born. That's when
your time starts, or it really it begins the moment
you're formed as an egg, which you know, we don't
want to take this too far, but you are always
in your mother the entire time she was alive. Then
it goes back all the way and if you think
about it too hard, your brain's gonna break a little bit.

(20:50):
But time for you begins when you are born and
it ends when you die, right, And it's one thing
that's it. That's how you get to experience it, to
find as the time you can observe personally, yes, the
way the way we experience it right as humans. So
that's that. That's a movie theater. That's time for us. Now,

(21:11):
imagine watching something on a streaming service like a Netflix
or a Peacock, if you will. With that, you want
to watch the same movie that we're just talking about
in the theater. Let's say Evil Dead two. That movie
is now on Netflix for you, and you can begin it,
you can pause it if you want to, and it
just stays right there in that state until you're ready

(21:33):
to continue, You could rewind watch something else, see it
in a different state. You could fast forward watch the
ending first if you wanted to see how it ends,
then go back to the beginning and watch that part.
You have control over time essentially in this way. This
is what scientists have figured out how to do with

(21:54):
subatomic particles that are quantumly linked. I think quantumly entangled. Entangled,
get out of town entangled. Yeah, okay, my brain already hurts.
You guys probably don't understand what the heck I'm talking about.
I know I'm not coherent right now. See you can
tell by the beef that I just made. Guys, we
could just try and read some of this and see

(22:15):
if it sticks. Yeah, let's give everybody a couple of
guardrails here, because this gets really weird really quickly. So
you beautifully established quantum entanglement, which is true and is
a known thing. We should also establish that time gets

(22:36):
very tricky at very very small scales. And this is
where the problem of observation comes in. Right, everybody's heard
the old, the old science experiment where light functions as
a wave or a series of particles depending on it.
You know, if someone is looking at it, which is nuts.

(22:58):
But in quantum mechanics, observing a system can cause it
to change just by the nature of a focused consciousness
on that which I know sounds crazy and very woo woo,
but it's also very true. True. No, I don't like it,
No I do whatever. Come on, come on, come whatever?

(23:19):
All right, Okay, Matt, So we got our guide rails.
What's what's going on here? What does everybody need to
know when they want to rewind time and not be
late for work? Um? Okay, how are we there yet? No?
I don't know. I don't know anything. The flat circle
is just not as flat as I thought it was. Okay,

(23:41):
so there are a bunch of researchers. One of the
researchers is Miguel Nevascus, which this person is with the
oa W, which is the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Okay,
we're also dealing with the University of Vienna and a
few other groups that are doing all this stuff. These

(24:04):
researchers directly quote from this article here from Darren North.
The researchers achieved this, this thing being able to manipulate
time within a quantum system by quote, evolving a single
photon as it passes through a crystal. Using an experimental

(24:24):
device called a quantum switch, the single photon of light
returns to its previous state before it ever makes the
journey through the crystal. What Darren continues, in a way,
this is less Doc Brown style time travel and more
about reverting or otherwise altering the states of quantum particles

(24:50):
or quote time translation. Oh what the hell, guys, I
don't right, So is this related to time dilation as well?
Is that like the opposite? Sure, it's the exact same thing.
I have no idea. No, I don't know. I just
it's a term I've heard. I just thought i'd throw

(25:11):
it out there. This is that timey? Whymy stuff? Doctor?
Who was talking about? Oh god, it gets weirder, guys.
Continuing from Darren's article in quantum mechanics, simply observing a
system causes it to change would make which makes it
impossible to track a systems progress through time. Well, then
how do we know that this is what happened? Okay? Crucially,

(25:32):
these rewinding protocols still work because they can be performed
without knowing what the changes were or its internal dynamics.
According to the scientists, also according to the scientists, cheese
isn't real. No, I'm just joking. No, they're there. They're
out there. Look up the Harpie eagle. If you are

(25:52):
scared of birds, it looks like a dude. It is
Sue dressed air. But us feel so dumb. Guys, Well,
we're right there with no one here on this show
right now. As a physicist, we may have some in
the audience, And if you are a conspiracy realist who
has experienced in physics and quantum mechanics, please feel free

(26:13):
to write in and help us put this in more
understandable terms like help us out. We do. By way,
speaking of scientists here, Matt, I do think it's important
for us to avoid some of the mistakes that pop
science makes in reporting, because you can see these kind
of breathless, hyperbolic headlines at times. But I think it's

(26:36):
crucial for us to note from my understanding, at least,
the scientists involved in this research are not trying to
specifically prove that these subatomic particles, these neutrinos, are traveling
faster than the speed of light. They're trying to figure
out why their data looks so weird. Is that correct?

(26:57):
Like they haven't made any crazy, crazy claims other than
you know, the claims you just outlined, which are pretty
crazy for me and also brain breaking. Yeah, and I
don't know. Here, here's another thing from this same article.
This is an example that's given by these researchers. Let's
say you've got ten of these quantum systems that they've built, right,

(27:20):
ten of them. Each one of those ten is running
an experiment that's going to run for ten years NonStop.
It's going to run this experiment for ten years. They're saying.
In this system, if you wanted to have one of
those ten year long experiments run for ten years within
the span of one year, so basically accelerate the time

(27:43):
of that system, they could theoretically pull one year from
each of the other nine systems and funnel it into
the one system, so that this one system essentially evolves
or runs that experiment for the span of ten years,
is just condensed into one actual human year, which I

(28:05):
understood some of those words. Yeah, okay, so theoretically all
this is really doing it. It's in the final paragraph
of this article. The point isn't jetting off to the
distant future of twenty fifteen is in like going back
to the future to twenty fifteen. But the ability to
increase the capability of quantum processors by arming them with

(28:26):
the possibility of reversing errors in a system, Now, that's
really interesting to me. So if we were talking about
a quantum computing system, right, and it's running doing a
bunch of processes going and going, going, and it made
an error or a couple of errors, the idea that
it could somehow the system itself could somehow go back

(28:46):
in time while it's still processing up here, you know,
at the leading edge of time, it can go back
and fix those processes simultaneously or something like that. Maybe
that's a super dumbing down of what's being said here,
But I don't you can know. I'm just no, you
know what I need. I need to correct myself as
well here, man, because I'm realizing now that I was

(29:10):
referring to a different experiment, which is older in in
this series of experiments, our Austrian friends have proven that
it's possible to accelerate, decelerate, and reverse the flow of times.
So they they got there. This is okay. So the

(29:30):
weird thing is this is still exploration of the natural world, right,
just at a very very small level, like they're observing
processes that have already been occurring. They didn't make something new,
They just figured out how to see it. Is that correct? Sure?
What is a quantum switch? Stop? Listen? This is a call.

(29:53):
This is a call to physicists out there. Does anyone
specialize in this? Can anyone dumb this death down? For
some some guys who honestly, I feel like we have
some pretty intellectual conversations about complicated and complex stuff, but
I still can't wrap my head around. Yeah. I don't
know about you, guys. I am always trying to learn

(30:16):
more about something, and I'm transparent here when I say
this is still hard at least for me to grasp.
So if you're an expert in the potential of quote
unquote time travel with subatomic particles, please do us a
favor and send us an email before we record this episode. Yep, yeah, please, God, please,

(30:39):
ah please. This is this feels like the kind of
research and understanding of the physical world and you know
subatomic world that happens right before everything collapses, you know,
because it's class like seven times before this. Oh, I
think this is what happens every time. Oh, you know what, Yeah, expert,

(31:00):
send us an email before we record this conversation. Oh dude, right,
all right, well that's a look, that's all I've got. Guys.
I'm sorry, Sammy, we failed you. Well, let's let's point
to another article here. You can find in l pia's
U P L E L Space p ai S Very

(31:21):
Big Journal's mallet. Here. It's in their Science and Tech
in English. It is titled we have made science Fiction
Come true. Scientists prove particles in a quantum system can
be rejuvenated and so can dreams, Yes, be rejuvenated and
also come true. That's it. Uh. Here are our sponsors,

(31:49):
and we've returned for a fun, a fun thing. We're
gonna do that Ben teased earlier. Um, we're gonna hear
from a listener. But then we're gonna open up the
conversation to talk a little bit about the spooky movies
that we all like. It's kind of perma Halloween here,
like Ben said, at stuff they don't want you to know.

(32:10):
Let me pull up this here email from Joe who says, Hi, everyone,
I'm sure this is probably already on your radars if
you're horror movie fans. But I just finished the episode
you get on sleep paralysis and shadow people and other
fun sleep stuffs. If you haven't seen it yet, I
highly recommend the film Skin of Marink. It plays like

(32:31):
a fever dream when you're a little kid. It goes
to some pretty horrifying places involving small kids, so parents,
for sure beware. But it is one of the more
unique horror movies I've seen in a while. Boy Howdy,
It's a tough watch, but really good. I think love
the show. It keeps me company during the day, love
peace and cash, so I'll take some of that. Joe Ben,

(32:54):
I believe you saw Skin of Marink. I've been hearing
a lot about it, both good and ad which is
I think the case for a lot of sort of
otter or maybe unusual horror films, like one that I
really like call where Everyone's Going to the World's Fair.
People either loved it or hated it. It was kind
of low fi webcammy stuff, and I think this one
is kind of looks a little bit like Paranormal Activities,

(33:17):
but it is about some kids that wake up in
a pretty horrifying situation where like they don't have windows
in their house, anymore and their parents are gone. Yeah, yeah,
you nailed it. So the the primary figures are Kevin
and Kyley, two siblings. The entire thing has a nightmarish,

(33:40):
fever dream vibe. I don't want to ruin too much
of it, but you already have seen probably some commentary
on this folks about analogs for child abuse and very
very disturbing, difficult, difficult stuff. I can see how this
would be divisive for some people. It's definitely not a

(34:03):
film that you would just put on in the background
and if i'nd with Some people found it profoundly disturbing.
Some people loved it, some people found it just sort
of lack luster. But for anybody who has listened to
our episodes on the Nature of Dreams, this, I think
this would be this would be very interesting. I mean,

(34:25):
we've been pretty fortunate, haven't we, to have so much
amazing horror coming out in recent years? Are you? Are
you guys planning to see Skinner mariey? No, I'm not
going to see it. No. Little kids stuff kind of
get you, so I am. My understanding is that there's
some harm to children in it, and I don't want to.

(34:48):
I don't want to go through that understood. Yeah, but
there there's an interesting story here because the um, the
guy who created this, Kyle Edward Ball, had YouTube channel
I think still has where people would comment and tell
them about their nightmares, and then you would make short
videos based on those stories. And I believe I haven't

(35:12):
looked into it, but I believe Skinner Marink comes from that,
and the tier pointill about it seeming kind of low
five for people. I think the budget was something like
fifteen thousand dollars, which is huge for individual person, but
very very bootstrap and shoe string for a film. Actually,

(35:32):
our our superproducer codenamed Doc Holiday, when she's not slumming
it with us, she is a big wheel in the
world of production. So I think could probably confirm fifteen
thousand as a total budget for films. It's not that much,
right for a feature or for for a feature feature. Yeah,

(35:53):
oh no, that's yeah, fifteen thousand. That's that's that's that's
a that's a light, that's a lens, that's like crap services.
It's one person with a camera that they already own,
and two kids that are just friends and want to
make a fun movie with their pal and like a
cat pulling. Yeah, definitely. It really does remind me of

(36:15):
like the you know, kind of found footage craze that
got pretty annoying pretty quick, um, you know. I mean
obviously Paranormal Activities was made on a micro budget as well.
I remember the exact number. I think it was probably
more than that though, but definitely given the amount of
money that movie made and how many you know, offshoots
it spawned and copycats, I mean, that was a huge deal.

(36:37):
This seems a lot more creative than Paranormal activity I'm
not really a fan of those movies. I haven't seen it,
so I can't really say, but it's interesting though. I
think some people, you know, horror fans in particular, can
be a little bit petulant if I'm being completely honest,
or or a pedantic maybe is a better word. That's
that's a much better word in terms of like what
constitutes a horror movie and kind of what they're expecting.

(36:59):
And so a lot of times, if you see divisive
reviews for movies like this, sometimes the division comes from, like,
you know, the horror community maybe while critics are giving
it good reviews. So that's a thing that I've seen
is he was like a lot of the more upfair
critics like New York Times and stuff have been pretty
favorable about this, and it's definitely making some noise. But

(37:20):
I have seen some Rotten Tomatoes user review saying, don't
believe the high but it's totally boring. And but then again,
I saw some very similar reactions to that film. I
was talking about Everyone's coming, Everyone's going to the World's
Fair and or We're all going to the World's Fair.
And I loved that movie and did find it unsettling,
and it really didn't match up with the zeitgeisty thing,
which is like kind of chronically online you know, zenials

(37:45):
or whatever that that group was called. Could you give
everybody like the kind of the high level description of
Everybody's coming to the World's Fair. Yeah, it's essentially it's
like a creepy pasta kind of thing where you're experiencing
it through the eyes and literally the webcam and these
kind of confessional you know, web diaries of this of
the main protagonist. And there's this this creepy pasta challenge

(38:09):
where you go online and you you make a video
where you say, we're all going to the World's Fair
a bunch of times, and then you play this like
this weird kind of epilepsy inducing you know, potentially video clip.
It's like the series of flashing lights and the whole time,
I don't want to give anything away, but you're not
quite sure if like it's working, and like she's kind

(38:29):
of commenting on like she's feeling these transformations. You don't
really know what it's supposed to do. But there's also these,
you know, cutaways to other people doing the challenge, and
some of them clearly being made by folks that are
like doing kind of cool diy VFX kind of stuff,
and you know, again you don't know some of these
are supposed to be real, some of them are clearly

(38:52):
just good after effects work, and that's sort of the point.
But it progresses and it's a lot of like is
she isn't she kind of you know, actually turning into
something demonic or whatever it might be. And that's all
I'm gonna say. But it is all shot through webcam footage,
and at some point there's like some black light face
paint stuff that really is unsettling. It's if you've seen

(39:12):
the poster of the film, then that's that's what you're seeing.
And it's got a really cool soundtrack or score by
the kind of indie artist Alex Gum, and it's it's
very it's it's just I loved it. I thought it
was really cool, and I hope to love Skinner Marink
as well. Because some folks that I whose opinions I value,
did like it. But then it's some folks whose opinions

(39:32):
I value also trashed it. So hard to say. My
understanding is that it's a highly disturbing, almost intellectual depiction
of childhood domestic abuse, and that like, that's why I'm
saying I don't want to see it, because that that,
to me is probably the most horrifying thing I can imagine.

(39:53):
M I somehow bet that it like a lot of
things happen off camera or implied well, especially given the
budget and stuff. But I can't say because I haven't.
Ben can you speak to without spoiling it? Like how
graphic is it? Well? There are you know, Hitchcock was
right when he said keep the monsters are scarier when
they're off screen to a large degree. So there are

(40:16):
there are sections just as a trigger warning that hint
it is about child abuse. That's probably the best way
to say it the most fair without spoiling. But also
you might be saying, hey, folks, why are you just
talking about movies in a show that is for conspiracy
realists and examines the stuff they don't want you to know. Well,
I would pause it that. Unfortunately, unfortunately, for many people,

(40:42):
domestic abuse is a grand conspiracy. So while I understand
one hundred percent that this can be incredibly uncomfortable and
rightly so, it is also something that happens to people,
and as such I feel like should should be explored.
It's not for nothing too, that we we try to

(41:04):
do trigger warnings just around thematic content that could just
discussing something like this could be triggering for certain folks
that may be experienced it without having to have any
graphic descriptions at all. So even if a movie, you know,
a good film and a good horror film kind of
takes you psychologically to a place, if maybe you're not

(41:25):
signed up for that going in, Even if there are
no actual on screen depictions of violence toward children, just
the thematic elements of it, and if it's done well
could be troubling in a way that you don't want
to be a part of, you know, and I think
that's true of things like films depicting school shooters for example.

(41:46):
You know, while a lot of the maybe better ones,
that stuff doesn't happen on screen at all. That stuff
it's it's offscreen. You know, the violence actually happens off screen,
but it's still something very triggering for anyone, because it's
all about atmosphere, you know. And and it seems to
me like this movie is skinnamer rank rather and also
World Fair are are very atmosphere driven films, and that's

(42:08):
what you have to do with a micro budget like that.
It's all about atmosphere. And that's I think to me
the magic of cinema when it's done real, when it's
done well. Yeah, and you know, you see you see
divisiveness in other other films that approach very uncomfortable things
we've I can't remember we talked about on air, but
off air. Another film in the conspiracy horror genre is Hereditary.

(42:32):
And Hereditary yeah because it because it was originally written
entirely as as a harrowing story about a family trying
to navigate and process grief when one of their children
dies spoiler. And if you read interviews, the creator of

(42:52):
that universe is pretty upfront by saying, look, I had
this story. It's very powerful, to disturbing story about families
navigating grief, and I couldn't sell it. So I made
it a horror film and added supernatural elements. And I
think to some folks hearing that, they might I roll
or something be like, oh, as you just shoehorned in

(43:14):
all this spooky stuff. That is not what that movie is.
I never would have known this or guess that in
a million years, because it all just feels like it was,
you know, crafted at once, you know the I think
that movie is brilliant and brilliantly disturbing, and also some
of the scariest parts in it aren't the horrific scenes,
which there are plenty of that are actually very gory

(43:36):
and violent, Yeah, dude, But but just the grief part,
you know, the idea of losing a child and the
and just the absolute unhinged grief that Tony Collette displays.
I mean, and it's such a bummer that. I mean,
I don't give a crap about the Academy Awards. Really,
it's just more of like a interesting metric for like

(43:57):
movies that are you know, that are doing cool stuff.
But I'm more interested maybe some of the lesser, you know,
European film festivals that that maybe give stuff to stuff
that's a little more deserving. But Tony Collette should have
been nominated for an Oscar for that performance. But the
Academy don't mess with horror movies. Yeah, it's bizarre. You
know what else should have gone an Academy Award's Army

(44:18):
of Darkness. Army of Darkness, Yes, the harrowing, nuanced depiction
of you know, life in the modern industrial age. How
much do we need machines before we become machines? Sir?
That movie takes place in the medieval era. Okay, I know,
I know. It's like i'd say, they are levels to

(44:39):
you know, just like in like you see It in
Its in Its Spiritual successor the unofficial sequel Police Academy
for all those. Yeah, those are snubbed by the Academy unfairly,
I would say. But the Army of Darkness is neat though,
and I would I mean, I know you're kind of
half joking, but like the style of VFX in that movie,
and like the whole like Ray Harry housing kind of

(45:01):
nods like with the you know what is adjacent the Argonauts,
the kind of likes hand done, the bespoke stop motion.
It's it's it doesn't age well, but they do it
such a way. When I say it is an age well,
I mean and compared to like more modern stuff. But
it looks so cool because it's like real skeletons that
are moving one little, you know, frame at a time,
and I just think it's great than all of the

(45:22):
practical makeup effects and things that are in that movie.
Sam Raamy's awesome. And then of course, you know he
went on to do all the big spider Spider Man movies.
I'm just saying he was doing. I want to have
some fun with my horror movies. You know, I love
existential horror. I love really scary things and monsters and
all that stuff. I just don't want it to be
like a like a full on, all encompassing downer to

(45:46):
the point where my brain and I'm just like I
want it to be you know, give me some sugar
baby and those kind of one liners and all that. Yeah,
like I love that, Like like I love slapstick horror
or you know, the Shining the Witch, like the Carnival
of Souls, you know what I mean, give me, give

(46:07):
me some laughs, prat falls, give me prat falls. Those
are obviously, if anyone is aware, those are very intense
dramatic horror movies have been just named whatever. Yeah, I mean, well,
one that I was going to bring up that is
absolutely not for the faint of heart but still uses
all these practical effects. I think I maybe mentioned it
briefly before, a Taiwanese horror film called The Sadness, which

(46:32):
is so over the top and cartoonishly gory that it
eventually desensitizes you to it a bit um and then
they'll just up the annie you know, even further. It
is not for the faint of heart. I watched it
with my girlfriend, who has this rule that she'll never
not watch a movie like to its completion, and this
was apparently the biggest slog for her ever of anything

(46:55):
that I've forced her to watch. Oh, I do the
ten minute rule. I give it ten minutes. Yeah, and
that's fair. But my partner can't do that. They can't
do that. Yeah, I'm with you. Um again, I don't
believe in the sunk cost fallacy either, but that's just
differences in our personalities. And she did make it all
the way through. But this is a it's a zombie
film where the zombies are like megamega fast, and they

(47:20):
aren't just mindless like flesh and brain seekers. They essentially
become victim to the most despicable violent impulses that any
human being could be capable of. And the kicker is
the name. The sadness comes from the fact that they
anyone that's that's been infected. It's a virus situation infected

(47:41):
by this. Their real personality is somewhere deep down in
there watching the whole thing. And so all of the
zombies quote unquote are like weeping and that is their
internal voice of reason and h and morality, just being
horrified by what their he is doing. Well, good night everybody,

(48:02):
Thanks for listening. We hope you sleep well. By the way,
if you started listening to this episode not knowing this
was on the way, Oh your dreams, send me, send
me descriptions of your nightmas, send it to us. I
want to hear about your dreams, but only if they're scary.
That's gonna be great. Out of context quote, we know

(48:23):
a lot of us in the audience day. A lot
of us are fans of horror, and you know, sometimes
critics will dunk on genre film, just like they'll dunk
on you know, genre books or whatever. But horror seems
to play, I would say, an incredibly important role in
human society. You know. It's a new way for people

(48:44):
to explore things that are sometimes taboo, sometimes not spoken about.
And it's a it's a mirror that you can hold
up to yourself, you know, which I don't know. It
sounds like cliche. Let's let's get out of here before
I get all fortune Cookie style, and I'm like, oh,
the Journey of Thousand Films beginnings with you know, the
first play button. Oh my god, never mind, No, what

(49:09):
are some of your favorite horror movies? We'd love to know.
I think we're all into it, invested in various ways.
You can write to us. You can reach out to
us in various ways as well. On the internet, for example,
we are conspiracy stuff on Facebook, on YouTube and on Twitter,
Conspiracy Stuff show on Instagram and TikTok. And if you

(49:31):
like to use your phone to call people, which is
apparently not something many people like to do anymore, as
I have learned from my colleagues. Sorry, guys, that's my bad.
I like to call them way more than they're comfortable
with me calling them. And that's okay. No, you're fine.
I have a very short list. You're on it. I
think I sent you all that list one time. That's right,

(49:53):
that's right. But if you like to do that, why
not give us a call. Our number is one eight
three three std w y t K. When you call in,
give yourself a nickname, and then you've got three minutes
tell us whatever you'd like, but again, only three minutes.
Please make sure to let us know if we can
use your message and your voice on one of our
listener mail episodes. And that's really it. If you don't

(50:16):
want to call, why not instead send us a good
old fashioned email. We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.

(50:41):
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