October 31, 2025 • 17 mins
Midnight seances, glow-in-the-dark ghosts, and a gorilla that always breaks loose—our journey into haunted-house history starts where theater met sideshow and never looked back. We trace the first British walkthroughs of the 1930s, the packed spook shows that turned movie palaces into after-hours carnivals, and the scrappy showmen who transformed empty storefronts into seasonal scream factories.
From the U.K. to postwar Japan, if you love theme parks, horror design, or the mechanics of a perfect fright, you’re in the right place.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_04 (00:16):
Hi everyone, welcome to a little Halloween bonus from
your favorite lonesome ghosts,Kelly and Pete.
It probably comes as no surpriseto all of you good people out
there, but Pete and I often havemore to say about a topic than
seems reasonable to try and fit,you know, into our already
lengthy podcasts.
So, as your humble editor, Ihave to murder a lot of babies.
(00:37):
Oh, stop, it's a figure ofspeech.
And sometimes, as with our notscary farm episode, the babies I
murder are really juicy.
That might have been too far.
Now, he won't toot his own horn,but I will.
My podcast partner Pete hasspent a significant portion of
his life both creating andstudying the history of haunted
(00:58):
houses.
And this is a segment from thecurrent episode where he goes
deep into their early history,as well as in discussing the
influence of Japanese Bhutto andObakiashiki.
I hope you find it asinteresting as I did.
Now, before we launch into itthough, could I ask you a favor?
I know you hear this over andover, but we'd love to get more
people on the low-downbandwagon.
(01:20):
Low down, lowrai, low whatever.
We'd love to get more people tolisten.
And the only way this kind ofshow spreads is by word of mouth
and online reviews.
It's the only way to get asignal through the noise.
Would you mind helping us outand reviewing the show on iTunes
or Spotify or, you know,wherever you get your podcasts
(01:40):
from, and maybe some of theplaces you don't get your
podcasts from.
Or maybe telling some friendsabout it.
It would mean a heck of a lot tous.
We'd really appreciate it.
And now, sit back, relax, andjoin us for Pete's Haunted House
History.
SPEAKER_00 (02:04):
This is the Yes, that they were the first to
really tackle it.
They were not the first hauntedhouse.
Nope.
That honor goes to a Britishwalkthrough in the 1930s.
Tell me about that.
There was a haunt in GreatBritain that was basically a fun
house where they decided to addghosts and a few other things,
(02:27):
and it was just actors in thiskind of darkened maze.
Uh-huh.
And it was right next to ahelter-skelter slide.
SPEAKER_04 (02:33):
Oh, interesting.
SPEAKER_00 (02:34):
So very British.
Yeah.
Very, very British.
It was called the, you know, itwas like a haunted castle or
something like that.
Very, you know, very, verysimple.
It was not anything major, butthat was in the 1930s.
Wow.
So as far as the actual likehaunt approach, that's the
1930s.
Yeah.
And then by the 40s, 30s and40s, you had this phenomenon
(02:54):
that were called spook shows.
And spook shows, what they were,it was a way for movie theaters
and vaudeville circuits to makesome extra money during
downtime.
SPEAKER_01 (03:04):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (03:05):
When when theaters were not getting motion pictures
fast enough or they weresuffering financially, they
would throw a spook show.
Yeah.
And what that entailed, uh,sometimes it would involve a
movie, like some sort of monstermovie, Frankenstein, Wolfman,
whatever.
Yeah.
But nine times out of ten, itwould feature a uh magician.
And these were spook show racketguys.
(03:25):
And a lot of them, this is allthey did.
They did not do legitimate magicshows, you know, for birthdays
or in Vegas or anything.
That they went town to town.
Uh, they would send movietrailers to movie theaters ahead
of them saying, Come and seefabulous Karakum, and Karakum
will be performing his Chamberof Terror.
And you would go, I'm in.
(03:46):
Yeah.
See Francisco performing thecrawling thing.
You know, and you had veryfamous guys like Neff, uh,
Jackrabbit Slim, all these guyswho were doing spook shows.
And there was an element of itwhere they would do bizarre
magic, usually involving cuttingsomebody in half, yeah,
decapitating them, puttingthrough a buzzsaw.
(04:06):
Yeah.
They would usually have somesort of gimmick or promotional
gimmick of somebody buried aliveor a monster that would come out
and attack you.
But the big thing that spookshows were known for were these
blackout seances.
SPEAKER_03 (04:17):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (04:18):
And they were playing around with luminescent
paint at this point.
They were playing with glow inthe dark paint, which was fairly
new.
They would make ghosts appear,or they would use chemical
effects to make the ghost ofJames Dean appears in the
theater right in front of yourvery eyes.
Yeah.
That kind of stuff.
Yeah.
And that would be the show.
And they would usually startaround midnight.
So it would run from midnight to2 a.m.
And these things would bepacked.
(04:39):
There are photographs ofaudiences, and they surround the
block of these theaters.
I'd go crammed in.
Yeah.
I I and it's a weird art form.
And there was a guy whose namewas William Morris.
And William Morris is importanthere because William started off
as a spook show magician.
Yeah.
I think he ran Dr.
(04:59):
Terror's House of or Dr.
Evil's House of Terror or Dr.
Terror's House of Evil.
I can't remember which one rightnow.
I'm sure we'll have an air.
Terror, there's evil.
Terror's evil.
It's probably 3D.
Whatever.
He was this kind of squishy guyfrom Tennessee, right?
You know, like, but he wasphenomenal.
And he started doing things withhis blackout with his spook
shows and his blackout seanceswhere he'd make the audience get
(05:22):
up and walk around in the backparts of the theater and they
would have scenes.
So you would go backstage andsee like a mad scientist
dissecting somebody or a gorillain a cage, and the gorilla would
get out and attack people.
SPEAKER_04 (05:38):
Um yeah, I experienced one of those because
they used to when I was growingup, they still had sideshows at
the Texas State Fair.
And they they had one of those,like the woman turning into a
gorilla, and the gorilla escapesand chases you out of the
theater.
SPEAKER_00 (05:54):
It's great fun.
Yeah, that effect actually goesall the way back to the 1890s.
Wow.
And it that's it's related tothe Pepper's ghosts.
It's it's an effect called theBlue Room.
And we talked about that before.
We did, yeah.
Um, but it's a very similarmechanism to do that.
And those were actually tied tothe Scopes Monkey trial.
It was all like a commentary.
They were very popular in in thethe below the uh Mason Nixon
(06:16):
line.
Yeah.
Because it was, you know, wherethe Scopes Monkey trial.
Yeah, a lot of sideshows backthen were like very focused on
like abortion or you know, themiracle of birth, which is
actually an excuse to see anaked woman.
SPEAKER_04 (06:28):
Right, or anti-evolution.
SPEAKER_00 (06:30):
Or anti-evolution or you know, see the see the car of
the man who like killed threepeople because he was drunk, you
know, right, yeah.
And hit it with a baseball bator whatever, you know, that kind
of stuff.
But William Morris was actuallypretty interesting because he
said, Well, wait a minute, whydo I have to rent a theater
anymore?
Like the spook shows reallystarted dying out right near
(06:52):
around 1969.
Yeah.
And the reason is that movieswere actually getting so good
that the theaters weren't havingproblems put packing them in
anymore.
SPEAKER_04 (07:02):
Yeah, and there was probably so mu many more movies
available that there was plentyof programming.
SPEAKER_00 (07:07):
Yeah, the the economics of it was a uh a
lawsuit against Paramount.
Uh and it was a class actionlawsuit that basically was a
monopoly buster because most prmovie production companies owned
the theaters.
So that's why you willoccasionally still to this day
you'll see a movie theater thatsays The Paramount or The Fox,
right?
Or you know, Warner's Cinema,you know, that kind of thing.
(07:29):
It's because that they wereoriginally erected by the
production company.
Right.
And they wouldn't let anybodyelse's movies in those theaters.
And now that's illegal.
Now that's a monopoly.
Yeah, it's because of thatlawsuit that that that broke
down, and it affected so manydifferent things.
That was one of the big stepsthat almost that killed the old
Hollywood system.
Yeah.
And one of the byproducts wasSpook Show started to die out.
(07:52):
Right.
But you had all these showmenwho had all these monster masks
and buzzsaws and all these gags,and you actually started seeing
people like William Morris say,We can continue doing this.
Yeah.
Just find an empty space.
So you would find an emptyretail spot or an old derelict
house, you take it over, and youwould put together a haunted
(08:14):
house.
Yeah.
And Morris got so good at this.
He actually wrote a book thatgot me started with that when I
was five years old.
It's the reason I did that isbecause of his book.
It's called How to Design andBuild a Financially Successful
Haunted House.
Right.
And it is a step-by-step guide.
It's very simplistic.
SPEAKER_04 (08:34):
Yeah, I'm I'm assuming it was probably useful
for m mostly amateur hauntedhouses.
SPEAKER_00 (08:40):
Right.
It's a great place to start,especially if you're a kid
trying to figure this stuff out.
But ultimately, it is for umkids, you know, or or tea
preteens, like middle schoolers.
SPEAKER_03 (08:50):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (08:51):
It's about that level of reading, but the ideas
in it.
There was an illustrator namedDavid Lady, who is still around.
He actually does his own podcastabout uh monster masks.
Uh huh.
But he was the illustrator ofthat of that book.
Right.
And the and the the drawings arereally, really charming.
Like it just has this wonderfullook.
Uh, and he goes through uh bothMorris and Lady go through
(09:14):
illustrating and describing allthese different haunted house
prototype rooms.
Yeah.
There's the bad scientist lab,there's the pit in the pendulum
gag, and it shows you how tomake a fake body so that the
pendulum blade can go throughthe back of the body.
Oh, neat.
All the stuff, the black zoogag.
Yep.
And a lot of these gags are oldcarney, and uh, you know, the
the head on the sword routine,all that kind of stuff is there.
(09:36):
And they explain how it works.
And when you're a kid, you'rejust like, this is the secrets
of the universe.
SPEAKER_04 (09:41):
Right, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (09:42):
You've been led into a totally secret society.
Right.
Now, while when this washappening, something else
happened on the other side ofthe Pacific.
Yeah.
Uh the bombing of Nagasaki andHiroshima.
Oh, yeah.
Okay.
And that was the end of WorldWar II.
Yes.
And you that caused a tremendoustrauma to the Japanese people.
(10:05):
Yeah.
Regardless of how you believe uhwhat what you believe in, etc.
Yes, the Pacific conflict wastough for everybody.
It caused a tremendous amount oftrauma.
Uh in my opinion, Japan is theone and only society that can
truly be classified aspost-apocalyptic.
SPEAKER_04 (10:20):
Yes, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00 (10:21):
Because it was brought to the absolute brink
and then came back andflourished.
Yeah.
And by our standards, a lot ofus go uh in the West, like,
well, that tradition's a littleweird, or that business proc
practice is kind of odd to me.
And not to sound too weird aboutit, but it's like, yeah, because
(10:43):
they're actually thinking, howdo we make our society better
for where it was when everybodygot killed?
Yeah.
And let's let's actually ifwe're gonna have to start all
over, let's actually make itsomething that we want and
something that's beneficial.
Right.
So kudos to them for that.
That's no, there's no bashingthat at all.
Yeah.
But another art form, two artforms started in Japan because
(11:04):
of the bombing of Hiroshima,especially.
Yeah.
One is a dance medium that'sbased loosely off of traditional
flower flower dancing and umkabuki, uh-huh.
But it's an extension of trauma.
SPEAKER_04 (11:18):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (11:18):
And it's called uh uh Bhutto.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
I'm familiar with that.
Bhutto Dancing was founded bytwo different guys roughly about
the same time.
Um I cannot remember their namespecifically, because I would
just butcher their Japanesenames, and I don't want to do
that because I have a tremendousrespect for them in their art
form.
But they founded two differentschools of thought.
(11:40):
One was Bhutto dancing isn't asthe deepest expression of trauma
and pain and just raw emotionpersonified.
And and usually Bhutto dancersare painted very stark white
colors, yeah, and they're widelydistorted expressions on their
faces and contorting theirbodies in very strange ways.
Right.
(12:00):
The other person who foundedBhutto uh took it a different
direction where he said it wasactually closer to a seance in
which you were allowingelemental forces or spirits that
have not been alive for sometime to return to earth through
a body.
And when you're seeing theirdance, there it's the spirit
trying to operate the bodyagain.
(12:22):
Yeah.
And not 100% knowing how to doit.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (12:25):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (12:26):
And and reacting badly to the like death hurts,
like death is weird.
I'm back.
Like, how do I deal with this?
And it's disturbing.
It was disturbing for theJapanese people, it's disturbing
for Western eyes.
Right.
I find Bhutto to be absolutelyfascinating.
I love Bhutto dancing.
SPEAKER_03 (12:42):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (12:42):
And a lot of acting techniques that are used in
haunted houses, even in theWest, are derived from the
teachings of these Bhuttomasters.
Okay.
If ever you go to a hauntedhouse and you see the typical
character of the spooky dollycharacter, right?
It's the girl, she's in somesort of like pigtail outfit, but
she's got a cracked mask orshe's got some spooky makeup,
(13:03):
and she comes at you with herhead with her body kind of
twitching and her head kind oftwitches the side, those are
Bhutto maneuvers.
Hmm, interesting.
The way that that is presented.
And a lot of haunt actors,usually the base paint of their
face paint is white, black, andred.
That's all comes from Bhutto.
SPEAKER_04 (13:22):
Oh, that's really cool.
That's interesting.
Yeah, so we and we see a lot ofthat kind of move movement in
modern horror films, too.
SPEAKER_00 (13:28):
100%.
If you see Silent Hill, youwatch The Room of Nurses and
they're they're moving.
Yeah.
Some of them were actuallytrained in Bhutto.
Right.
So that's one art form start inJapan.
The other one is an art form uhcalled Obakiyashiki.
And Obakiyashiki literally meansghost house.
And they were usually set up inand they still exist today.
SPEAKER_03 (13:51):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (13:52):
Uh they're everywhere.
They're very, very popular inJapan.
SPEAKER_03 (13:54):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (13:55):
And you go in and you experience a ghost story.
Right.
And it's interactive becauseyou're going from room to room.
Yeah.
And usually the figures are alittle on the cheesy side, but
there's a lot of gore.
SPEAKER_03 (14:06):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (14:06):
Because a lot of Japanese ghost stories are very
gory.
Yes.
There's one where there's awoman who was poisoned, but it
didn't quite kill her instantly.
It gave her a slow death, so herhair fell out in bloody clumps
and her eyes started to bug outof her skull in those horrible
ways.
And then she gave birth to achild and she murdered the child
before she died.
And so she and her child are aghost that tortures the samurai
(14:28):
who wronged her.
It's a very, I forget the name,it's very, very famous.
Yeah.
Um, but that's represented.
And over time they have evolved.
Uh so like today there arezombie Obakiashikis.
Okay.
Big one in a theme park overthere that is a three or
four-story hospital that you gothrough.
Oh, jeez.
And it's in this happy, happytheme park, and you go through
this gate and it's like thisderelict hospital.
(14:51):
And it is creepy.
Apparently, this the experienceis very, very unsettling.
SPEAKER_04 (14:56):
You know, there's I don't know how related this is,
but you know, in in TokyoDisneyland for a long time, they
had uh uh like horror maze.
Yes.
In in the middle of it, and itkind of c seemed black cauldron
themed, which is fascinating.
SPEAKER_00 (15:10):
That's as close as you could get Obakiashiki,
because yeah, I mean that'sapart from doing because like
that's the creepiest of ghoststories that they've got.
Yeah.
Like you can't do lonesomeghosts.
Right, no, it's like you knowthat's a little silly, yeah, you
know.
But um but yeah, so Obakiyashikiis actually used almost as a
psychological treatment by thecitizens of Japan.
SPEAKER_04 (15:31):
Usually they go exposure therapy for trauma.
SPEAKER_00 (15:35):
Well, sort of, yeah, or or at least, if nothing else,
a pressure valve for theirpent-up emotions.
So, like, you know, the the theold adage of the squeaky nail in
the floor gets nailed down.
SPEAKER_03 (15:46):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (15:46):
So like at this point, you could just let it all
hang out.
And whenever you see Japanesepatrons of uh Obakiyashiki, they
usually come out smiling,giggling, and laughing and
feeling like a million bucks.
SPEAKER_03 (15:58):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (15:59):
It's they just let it out.
Yeah.
And it was Walt Disney whoactually saw some Obakiashiki.
Oh.
And he goes, I don't want thatin the Haunted Mansion.
Oh, yeah.
I don't want it super gore.
Like he made that like a adictum.
Like he was talking to uh theguys who are designing the
haunted mansions like I don'twant that.
SPEAKER_03 (16:18):
Yeah, right.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (16:19):
Okay, so you've got all those influences.
All I'm I'm I'm totally I'mworking on a book about the
history of this, so I reallykind of know a lot of this this
garbage.
SPEAKER_03 (16:28):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (16:28):
Uh but it really kicks in in the early 70s.
Right.
There are haunted housesalready, they do exist.
And most of them are amateur.
A lot of them are thrown on byorganizations like the YMCA, the
JCs.
Yeah.
There are even churches that areputting on haunted houses.
SPEAKER_04 (16:45):
We hope you've enjoyed this episode of The
Lowdown on the Plus Ups.
If you have, please tell yourfriends where you found us.
And if you haven't, we canpretend this never happened and
need not speak of it again.
For a lot more thoughts on themeparks and related stuff, check
out my writing for BoardwalkTimes at boardwalktimes.net.
Feel free to reach out to Peteand I at Lowdown on the Plus Up
(17:07):
on Blue Sky, Mastodon,Instagram, and all the other
socials.
Or you can send us a messagedirectly at commons at
lowdown-plus-up.com.
We really want to hear about howyou'd plus these attractions up
and read some of your ideas onthe show.
Our theme music is Goblin TinkerSoldier Spy by Kevin McLeod at
(17:29):
Incompitech.com.
We'll have a new episode outreal soon.
Why?
Because we like you.
Hi everyone, welcome to a little Halloween bonus from
your favorite lonesome ghosts,Kelly and Pete.
It probably comes as no surpriseto all of you good people out
there, but Pete and I often havemore to say about a topic than
seems reasonable to try and fit,you know, into our already
lengthy podcasts.
So, as your humble editor, Ihave to murder a lot of babies.
(00:37):
Oh, stop, it's a figure ofspeech.
And sometimes, as with our notscary farm episode, the babies I
murder are really juicy.
That might have been too far.
Now, he won't toot his own horn,but I will.
My podcast partner Pete hasspent a significant portion of
his life both creating andstudying the history of haunted
(00:58):
houses.
And this is a segment from thecurrent episode where he goes
deep into their early history,as well as in discussing the
influence of Japanese Bhutto andObakiashiki.
I hope you find it asinteresting as I did.
Now, before we launch into itthough, could I ask you a favor?
I know you hear this over andover, but we'd love to get more
people on the low-downbandwagon.
(01:20):
Low down, lowrai, low whatever.
We'd love to get more people tolisten.
And the only way this kind ofshow spreads is by word of mouth
and online reviews.
It's the only way to get asignal through the noise.
Would you mind helping us outand reviewing the show on iTunes
or Spotify or, you know,wherever you get your podcasts
(01:40):
from, and maybe some of theplaces you don't get your
podcasts from.
Or maybe telling some friendsabout it.
It would mean a heck of a lot tous.
We'd really appreciate it.
And now, sit back, relax, andjoin us for Pete's Haunted House
History.
SPEAKER_00 (02:04):
This is the Yes, that they were the first to
really tackle it.
They were not the first hauntedhouse.
Nope.
That honor goes to a Britishwalkthrough in the 1930s.
Tell me about that.
There was a haunt in GreatBritain that was basically a fun
house where they decided to addghosts and a few other things,
(02:27):
and it was just actors in thiskind of darkened maze.
Uh-huh.
And it was right next to ahelter-skelter slide.
SPEAKER_04 (02:33):
Oh, interesting.
SPEAKER_00 (02:34):
So very British.
Yeah.
Very, very British.
It was called the, you know, itwas like a haunted castle or
something like that.
Very, you know, very, verysimple.
It was not anything major, butthat was in the 1930s.
Wow.
So as far as the actual likehaunt approach, that's the
1930s.
Yeah.
And then by the 40s, 30s and40s, you had this phenomenon
(02:54):
that were called spook shows.
And spook shows, what they were,it was a way for movie theaters
and vaudeville circuits to makesome extra money during
downtime.
SPEAKER_01 (03:04):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (03:05):
When when theaters were not getting motion pictures
fast enough or they weresuffering financially, they
would throw a spook show.
Yeah.
And what that entailed, uh,sometimes it would involve a
movie, like some sort of monstermovie, Frankenstein, Wolfman,
whatever.
Yeah.
But nine times out of ten, itwould feature a uh magician.
And these were spook show racketguys.
(03:25):
And a lot of them, this is allthey did.
They did not do legitimate magicshows, you know, for birthdays
or in Vegas or anything.
That they went town to town.
Uh, they would send movietrailers to movie theaters ahead
of them saying, Come and seefabulous Karakum, and Karakum
will be performing his Chamberof Terror.
And you would go, I'm in.
(03:46):
Yeah.
See Francisco performing thecrawling thing.
You know, and you had veryfamous guys like Neff, uh,
Jackrabbit Slim, all these guyswho were doing spook shows.
And there was an element of itwhere they would do bizarre
magic, usually involving cuttingsomebody in half, yeah,
decapitating them, puttingthrough a buzzsaw.
(04:06):
Yeah.
They would usually have somesort of gimmick or promotional
gimmick of somebody buried aliveor a monster that would come out
and attack you.
But the big thing that spookshows were known for were these
blackout seances.
SPEAKER_03 (04:17):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (04:18):
And they were playing around with luminescent
paint at this point.
They were playing with glow inthe dark paint, which was fairly
new.
They would make ghosts appear,or they would use chemical
effects to make the ghost ofJames Dean appears in the
theater right in front of yourvery eyes.
Yeah.
That kind of stuff.
Yeah.
And that would be the show.
And they would usually startaround midnight.
So it would run from midnight to2 a.m.
And these things would bepacked.
(04:39):
There are photographs ofaudiences, and they surround the
block of these theaters.
I'd go crammed in.
Yeah.
I I and it's a weird art form.
And there was a guy whose namewas William Morris.
And William Morris is importanthere because William started off
as a spook show magician.
Yeah.
I think he ran Dr.
(04:59):
Terror's House of or Dr.
Evil's House of Terror or Dr.
Terror's House of Evil.
I can't remember which one rightnow.
I'm sure we'll have an air.
Terror, there's evil.
Terror's evil.
It's probably 3D.
Whatever.
He was this kind of squishy guyfrom Tennessee, right?
You know, like, but he wasphenomenal.
And he started doing things withhis blackout with his spook
shows and his blackout seanceswhere he'd make the audience get
(05:22):
up and walk around in the backparts of the theater and they
would have scenes.
So you would go backstage andsee like a mad scientist
dissecting somebody or a gorillain a cage, and the gorilla would
get out and attack people.
SPEAKER_04 (05:38):
Um yeah, I experienced one of those because
they used to when I was growingup, they still had sideshows at
the Texas State Fair.
And they they had one of those,like the woman turning into a
gorilla, and the gorilla escapesand chases you out of the
theater.
SPEAKER_00 (05:54):
It's great fun.
Yeah, that effect actually goesall the way back to the 1890s.
Wow.
And it that's it's related tothe Pepper's ghosts.
It's it's an effect called theBlue Room.
And we talked about that before.
We did, yeah.
Um, but it's a very similarmechanism to do that.
And those were actually tied tothe Scopes Monkey trial.
It was all like a commentary.
They were very popular in in thethe below the uh Mason Nixon
(06:16):
line.
Yeah.
Because it was, you know, wherethe Scopes Monkey trial.
Yeah, a lot of sideshows backthen were like very focused on
like abortion or you know, themiracle of birth, which is
actually an excuse to see anaked woman.
SPEAKER_04 (06:28):
Right, or anti-evolution.
SPEAKER_00 (06:30):
Or anti-evolution or you know, see the see the car of
the man who like killed threepeople because he was drunk, you
know, right, yeah.
And hit it with a baseball bator whatever, you know, that kind
of stuff.
But William Morris was actuallypretty interesting because he
said, Well, wait a minute, whydo I have to rent a theater
anymore?
Like the spook shows reallystarted dying out right near
(06:52):
around 1969.
Yeah.
And the reason is that movieswere actually getting so good
that the theaters weren't havingproblems put packing them in
anymore.
SPEAKER_04 (07:02):
Yeah, and there was probably so mu many more movies
available that there was plentyof programming.
SPEAKER_00 (07:07):
Yeah, the the economics of it was a uh a
lawsuit against Paramount.
Uh and it was a class actionlawsuit that basically was a
monopoly buster because most prmovie production companies owned
the theaters.
So that's why you willoccasionally still to this day
you'll see a movie theater thatsays The Paramount or The Fox,
right?
Or you know, Warner's Cinema,you know, that kind of thing.
(07:29):
It's because that they wereoriginally erected by the
production company.
Right.
And they wouldn't let anybodyelse's movies in those theaters.
And now that's illegal.
Now that's a monopoly.
Yeah, it's because of thatlawsuit that that that broke
down, and it affected so manydifferent things.
That was one of the big stepsthat almost that killed the old
Hollywood system.
Yeah.
And one of the byproducts wasSpook Show started to die out.
(07:52):
Right.
But you had all these showmenwho had all these monster masks
and buzzsaws and all these gags,and you actually started seeing
people like William Morris say,We can continue doing this.
Yeah.
Just find an empty space.
So you would find an emptyretail spot or an old derelict
house, you take it over, and youwould put together a haunted
(08:14):
house.
Yeah.
And Morris got so good at this.
He actually wrote a book thatgot me started with that when I
was five years old.
It's the reason I did that isbecause of his book.
It's called How to Design andBuild a Financially Successful
Haunted House.
Right.
And it is a step-by-step guide.
It's very simplistic.
SPEAKER_04 (08:34):
Yeah, I'm I'm assuming it was probably useful
for m mostly amateur hauntedhouses.
SPEAKER_00 (08:40):
Right.
It's a great place to start,especially if you're a kid
trying to figure this stuff out.
But ultimately, it is for umkids, you know, or or tea
preteens, like middle schoolers.
SPEAKER_03 (08:50):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (08:51):
It's about that level of reading, but the ideas
in it.
There was an illustrator namedDavid Lady, who is still around.
He actually does his own podcastabout uh monster masks.
Uh huh.
But he was the illustrator ofthat of that book.
Right.
And the and the the drawings arereally, really charming.
Like it just has this wonderfullook.
Uh, and he goes through uh bothMorris and Lady go through
(09:14):
illustrating and describing allthese different haunted house
prototype rooms.
Yeah.
There's the bad scientist lab,there's the pit in the pendulum
gag, and it shows you how tomake a fake body so that the
pendulum blade can go throughthe back of the body.
Oh, neat.
All the stuff, the black zoogag.
Yep.
And a lot of these gags are oldcarney, and uh, you know, the
the head on the sword routine,all that kind of stuff is there.
(09:36):
And they explain how it works.
And when you're a kid, you'rejust like, this is the secrets
of the universe.
SPEAKER_04 (09:41):
Right, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (09:42):
You've been led into a totally secret society.
Right.
Now, while when this washappening, something else
happened on the other side ofthe Pacific.
Yeah.
Uh the bombing of Nagasaki andHiroshima.
Oh, yeah.
Okay.
And that was the end of WorldWar II.
Yes.
And you that caused a tremendoustrauma to the Japanese people.
(10:05):
Yeah.
Regardless of how you believe uhwhat what you believe in, etc.
Yes, the Pacific conflict wastough for everybody.
It caused a tremendous amount oftrauma.
Uh in my opinion, Japan is theone and only society that can
truly be classified aspost-apocalyptic.
SPEAKER_04 (10:20):
Yes, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00 (10:21):
Because it was brought to the absolute brink
and then came back andflourished.
Yeah.
And by our standards, a lot ofus go uh in the West, like,
well, that tradition's a littleweird, or that business proc
practice is kind of odd to me.
And not to sound too weird aboutit, but it's like, yeah, because
(10:43):
they're actually thinking, howdo we make our society better
for where it was when everybodygot killed?
Yeah.
And let's let's actually ifwe're gonna have to start all
over, let's actually make itsomething that we want and
something that's beneficial.
Right.
So kudos to them for that.
That's no, there's no bashingthat at all.
Yeah.
But another art form, two artforms started in Japan because
(11:04):
of the bombing of Hiroshima,especially.
Yeah.
One is a dance medium that'sbased loosely off of traditional
flower flower dancing and umkabuki, uh-huh.
But it's an extension of trauma.
SPEAKER_04 (11:18):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (11:18):
And it's called uh uh Bhutto.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
I'm familiar with that.
Bhutto Dancing was founded bytwo different guys roughly about
the same time.
Um I cannot remember their namespecifically, because I would
just butcher their Japanesenames, and I don't want to do
that because I have a tremendousrespect for them in their art
form.
But they founded two differentschools of thought.
(11:40):
One was Bhutto dancing isn't asthe deepest expression of trauma
and pain and just raw emotionpersonified.
And and usually Bhutto dancersare painted very stark white
colors, yeah, and they're widelydistorted expressions on their
faces and contorting theirbodies in very strange ways.
Right.
(12:00):
The other person who foundedBhutto uh took it a different
direction where he said it wasactually closer to a seance in
which you were allowingelemental forces or spirits that
have not been alive for sometime to return to earth through
a body.
And when you're seeing theirdance, there it's the spirit
trying to operate the bodyagain.
(12:22):
Yeah.
And not 100% knowing how to doit.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (12:25):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (12:26):
And and reacting badly to the like death hurts,
like death is weird.
I'm back.
Like, how do I deal with this?
And it's disturbing.
It was disturbing for theJapanese people, it's disturbing
for Western eyes.
Right.
I find Bhutto to be absolutelyfascinating.
I love Bhutto dancing.
SPEAKER_03 (12:42):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (12:42):
And a lot of acting techniques that are used in
haunted houses, even in theWest, are derived from the
teachings of these Bhuttomasters.
Okay.
If ever you go to a hauntedhouse and you see the typical
character of the spooky dollycharacter, right?
It's the girl, she's in somesort of like pigtail outfit, but
she's got a cracked mask orshe's got some spooky makeup,
(13:03):
and she comes at you with herhead with her body kind of
twitching and her head kind oftwitches the side, those are
Bhutto maneuvers.
Hmm, interesting.
The way that that is presented.
And a lot of haunt actors,usually the base paint of their
face paint is white, black, andred.
That's all comes from Bhutto.
SPEAKER_04 (13:22):
Oh, that's really cool.
That's interesting.
Yeah, so we and we see a lot ofthat kind of move movement in
modern horror films, too.
SPEAKER_00 (13:28):
100%.
If you see Silent Hill, youwatch The Room of Nurses and
they're they're moving.
Yeah.
Some of them were actuallytrained in Bhutto.
Right.
So that's one art form start inJapan.
The other one is an art form uhcalled Obakiyashiki.
And Obakiyashiki literally meansghost house.
And they were usually set up inand they still exist today.
SPEAKER_03 (13:51):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (13:52):
Uh they're everywhere.
They're very, very popular inJapan.
SPEAKER_03 (13:54):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (13:55):
And you go in and you experience a ghost story.
Right.
And it's interactive becauseyou're going from room to room.
Yeah.
And usually the figures are alittle on the cheesy side, but
there's a lot of gore.
SPEAKER_03 (14:06):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (14:06):
Because a lot of Japanese ghost stories are very
gory.
Yes.
There's one where there's awoman who was poisoned, but it
didn't quite kill her instantly.
It gave her a slow death, so herhair fell out in bloody clumps
and her eyes started to bug outof her skull in those horrible
ways.
And then she gave birth to achild and she murdered the child
before she died.
And so she and her child are aghost that tortures the samurai
(14:28):
who wronged her.
It's a very, I forget the name,it's very, very famous.
Yeah.
Um, but that's represented.
And over time they have evolved.
Uh so like today there arezombie Obakiashikis.
Okay.
Big one in a theme park overthere that is a three or
four-story hospital that you gothrough.
Oh, jeez.
And it's in this happy, happytheme park, and you go through
this gate and it's like thisderelict hospital.
(14:51):
And it is creepy.
Apparently, this the experienceis very, very unsettling.
SPEAKER_04 (14:56):
You know, there's I don't know how related this is,
but you know, in in TokyoDisneyland for a long time, they
had uh uh like horror maze.
Yes.
In in the middle of it, and itkind of c seemed black cauldron
themed, which is fascinating.
SPEAKER_00 (15:10):
That's as close as you could get Obakiashiki,
because yeah, I mean that'sapart from doing because like
that's the creepiest of ghoststories that they've got.
Yeah.
Like you can't do lonesomeghosts.
Right, no, it's like you knowthat's a little silly, yeah, you
know.
But um but yeah, so Obakiyashikiis actually used almost as a
psychological treatment by thecitizens of Japan.
SPEAKER_04 (15:31):
Usually they go exposure therapy for trauma.
SPEAKER_00 (15:35):
Well, sort of, yeah, or or at least, if nothing else,
a pressure valve for theirpent-up emotions.
So, like, you know, the the theold adage of the squeaky nail in
the floor gets nailed down.
SPEAKER_03 (15:46):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (15:46):
So like at this point, you could just let it all
hang out.
And whenever you see Japanesepatrons of uh Obakiyashiki, they
usually come out smiling,giggling, and laughing and
feeling like a million bucks.
SPEAKER_03 (15:58):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (15:59):
It's they just let it out.
Yeah.
And it was Walt Disney whoactually saw some Obakiashiki.
Oh.
And he goes, I don't want thatin the Haunted Mansion.
Oh, yeah.
I don't want it super gore.
Like he made that like a adictum.
Like he was talking to uh theguys who are designing the
haunted mansions like I don'twant that.
SPEAKER_03 (16:18):
Yeah, right.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (16:19):
Okay, so you've got all those influences.
All I'm I'm I'm totally I'mworking on a book about the
history of this, so I reallykind of know a lot of this this
garbage.
SPEAKER_03 (16:28):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (16:28):
Uh but it really kicks in in the early 70s.
Right.
There are haunted housesalready, they do exist.
And most of them are amateur.
A lot of them are thrown on byorganizations like the YMCA, the
JCs.
Yeah.
There are even churches that areputting on haunted houses.
SPEAKER_04 (16:45):
We hope you've enjoyed this episode of The
Lowdown on the Plus Ups.
If you have, please tell yourfriends where you found us.
And if you haven't, we canpretend this never happened and
need not speak of it again.
For a lot more thoughts on themeparks and related stuff, check
out my writing for BoardwalkTimes at boardwalktimes.net.
Feel free to reach out to Peteand I at Lowdown on the Plus Up
(17:07):
on Blue Sky, Mastodon,Instagram, and all the other
socials.
Or you can send us a messagedirectly at commons at
lowdown-plus-up.com.
We really want to hear about howyou'd plus these attractions up
and read some of your ideas onthe show.
Our theme music is Goblin TinkerSoldier Spy by Kevin McLeod at
(17:29):
Incompitech.com.
We'll have a new episode outreal soon.
Why?
Because we like you.
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