Haunts and Haunt Attractions!! Film Foundations Microgenre: An Intro to Hell House LLC and more!

On this week's episode of Film Foundations, Chris and Ryan discuss a microgenre finally and they dive into HAUNTED ATTRACTIONS! Everything from Hell House LLC to Haunt. Do you agree? Disagree? Tell us in the comments!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello everyone, and welcome to Film Foundations, a show where
we answer four questions about a given topic mostly or
all the time. Damn, I fucked it up already. I
fucked it up already.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Remember you have it in your notes app. You can
just read the screen.

Speaker 3 (00:24):
Yeah, I have. Huh God, I'm an idiot. Yeah, look
at that. Look at that. It's right there. I could
just read it.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
Hello everyone, and welcome back to Film Foundations, the collaborative
show between weirding Way Media and Someone's favorite productions. I'm
your co host, Christashu from The Culture Cast and other
garbage cads on the Internet.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
And I am your other co host, Ryan Verrel from
The Disconnected, And I don't want to say garbage cans,
but i'll say other haunted corners of the Internet.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
I'm only saying garbage kids because of Oscar the Grouch.
I'm about to jam, so scram. Speaking of jamming.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
On this show, we ask and answer four questions about
a given topic that is surrounding either an actor, director,
or franchise or micro genre.

Speaker 3 (01:16):
Our job is to entice you.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
To broaden your horizons on film and to encourage you
to travel down film tangents and side roads you may
never have traveled down otherwise, and boy, do we have
a doozy for you on this episode. This is the
first time that Chris and Ryan do a micro genre together,
the thing that up until this point we've only had
guests doing, because hey, they are normally the ones who
care about these movies, not us.

Speaker 3 (01:38):
I'm kidding, But for the.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Most part, we've done things that are a little easier.
Micro Genres tend to be something that, like, you really
gotta be passionate about it, and you've gotta love those
Manic Pixie dream girl movies or be a huge fan
of time bending slashers, because there aren't a lot of them.
And speaking of the kinds of films that there are
not a lot of, we're talking about on this episode

(02:00):
film foundations.

Speaker 3 (02:01):
Now, let me get this right.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
Films about haunt attractions. What does that mean, Ryan Arrel,
I'm gonna kick it to you.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
This is the damn good question. We've been working on
this episode for a while, and the way that we
are looking this is either fiction or nonfiction films about
haunt attractions that are made specifically to scare people, not
a supernatural ghost lives here type of haunted house, but
something that is like a not scary farm house where

(02:34):
everybody's going in there, where people are jumping out of
corners to scare you. Or the Universal Studios haunted houses
that come out every September and October and people go
crazy over them, wait in lines for four hours just
to have the pists scared out of them. And because
the attractions themselves have gotten so popular over the last
ten or fifteen years, films about them have started to

(02:54):
come out and people are either loving these or trashing
them because they they sit on a very wide spectrum
in terms of quality for this little micro genre that
we're talking about today. So we're gonna go over like
a list of the type of films that we'll fall
under this and explain why there are other things that
might not fall into it. So I'll start with that part,

(03:15):
and the first one is, like we were talking about,
this fun House from Toby Hooper is one that a
lot of people might jump to, but really that's more
like a carnival movie, and we could easily do a
Film Foundation's episode on carnival films, So we're gonna save
that one for that episode. The other big one is
when you look on lists online, things like Escape Room.
I even saw one list that had saw listed on

(03:37):
these or Cube. Those are not haunt attractions. Those are
humans trapped somebody in a room and you have to
literally escape to live type of films, And believe me,
I love those. We're gonna talk about those at some point.
So we're literally talking about a haunt film where there
are employees at a location literally here to scare people
that are paying to come in and be scare at

(04:00):
a haunt attraction. Hopefully that definition is quite obvious enough
for everybody listening.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
The term haunted house will be used here in the
way that it is used in the month of October.
Outside of that, we're not talking about actually haunted places.
We're talking about attractions meant to scare you of the
House of Variety on this episode. Yeah, and you know,
we have to say all of this because, like you mentioned,

(04:27):
there are movies that kind of slip and slide off
the razor's edge into either direction. And you know, some
of those movies we might have wanted to talk about.
Some of them I never want to talk about again.
Looking at you, The Funhouse, a movie I really for
as positive as we are on this show.

Speaker 3 (04:45):
Normally the fun House is a movie.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
I know a lot of people really enjoy, a lot
of people really like, not for me, not for me
at all, So I'm glad we don't have to talk
about it. I'm actually excited to talk about this because,
like you mentioned to me before we started, this was
my idea. So well, I'll take full responsibility for this
episode either being great or good. No way, it's bad,
right wing never. But I think the thing that excites

(05:10):
me the most about this idea for this topic specifically
is up until about age oh, I don't know, sixteen,
I would not have been the right person to ask
what's your favorite haunted attraction?

Speaker 3 (05:23):
What's your favorite scary movie?

Speaker 1 (05:25):
I did not grow up on horror movies. I was
not raised on horror movies. They were not a thing
that anybody pushed me to watch. They were something I
pushed myself to watch at a certain age. So I
think it's interesting because up into a certain point in
my life I would have been the wrong person for this,
But now I am very much the right person for this,
as I assume you are.

Speaker 2 (05:45):
I very much am the right person for this. I
have loved going to some haunts in person. I've not
been to a ton. I've hopefully at some point in
this episode I'll have a really kind of fucked up
story to tell about a real life happening at a haunt.
But at at some point, I just started loving some
of these movies that were coming out in this genre

(06:06):
and sharing them with my wife and a few other
friends and big fan. I hope that they continue making them.
I think there's a lot of room for these to grow,
and you know, talking about blurred lines. One thing that's
interesting is this genre specifically has the ability to go
from the haunt attraction into the supernatural side, because even

(06:27):
though there are some of these things that are billed
as a haunt, it is possible that in the film
universe that we're discussing that location could also be invaded
by spirits, and based on that, we're fucked. So it's
going to be a really blurry interesting episode to go through.

(06:47):
The end of this.

Speaker 1 (06:50):
Yeah, I'm I'm you know, I asked you beforehand. We
didn't tell each other our answers, but I was like,
how many of these do you think we're gonna have
that are the same? And I am convinced we will
have at least least one, and it may be the
one that we both share and maybe not. Maybe he's
shaking his head, no, folks, I don't know. Again, my
whole thing here is like, this is the smallest list

(07:12):
that we've ever dealt with, or at least not lists,
because there are lists that we're working off of. But again,
one of the movies that I'm going to mention didn't
show up on any of these lists, so haha, fuckos.
But for me, getting to talk about haunted attraction movies
is fun because I think the thing that at least
my opening comment on all of these kinds of movies is,

(07:34):
like you mentioned, ten to fifteen years is really the
longest that we have had these movies around. But they
don't really do a lot to dissuade people from being
scared shitless about haunted houses, which is for me, one
of the funniest things about these movies. It's just like
someone like my mom hates haunted houses, Like the idea

(07:54):
of going into a haunted house to be scared intentionally
sounds like the worst thing possible to my poor mother.
So showing her a movie where the people who are
running the haunted house are trying.

Speaker 3 (08:04):
To kill you.

Speaker 1 (08:05):
In fact, is going to be a fuel on the
fire of No fucking way am I doing this ever
in my lifetime. And I find that amusing because again,
like I said, up into a certain point in my life,
like I would have said the exact same thing, not
so much anymore. But yeah, I'm.

Speaker 3 (08:22):
A haunted house fan. I don't know about you.

Speaker 1 (08:24):
You've gone to some The one that I went to
is kind of in North Texas, at least it used
to be. I don't know, maybe it's not the big
one that anybody goes to, but the Cutting Edge in
Fort Worth, an hour long haunted house. Now it's a
little bit of a little bit of a misnomer because
there's some bullshit that you have to deal with about
two thirds of the way through.

Speaker 2 (08:44):
They do this.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
At least they used to this like maze in the
dark and you had to do it, but there was
no way to get out, and it was themed like sauce.

Speaker 3 (08:53):
It was like you have sixty seconds to get out.

Speaker 1 (08:56):
And it's like the gag is that it's essentially just
like a holding for you to be in for five
minutes so that you don't so that you can like
make sure that the people are going through and not
getting scared. Because here's the thing I really want to mention,
you know what sucks about haunted houses. Your really grinds
my gears about haunted houses when you go through them
and you're stacked on top of each.

Speaker 3 (09:14):
Other and you can't get scared.

Speaker 2 (09:16):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (09:18):
And like that's always been my trepidation going to Universal Studios.
I wanted to go last year for my wife's birthday.
We couldn't make it happen. I went to Universal Studios
this year, and seeing how that ship was run, I'm
not sure I want to go see those haunted houses.
They'll probably break while I'm in line for them. But
those moments that I've been in a haunted house that
I really enjoy, and then I see the people in

(09:40):
front of me, it breaks the fucking magic. And that's
the that's the worst magic breaking. That's worse than someone
not being into trying to scare you. Seeing the people
in front of you being scared is just like the
drizzlin shits in a haunted house.

Speaker 2 (09:55):
Not only that, seeing them be scared and then the
haunt employee slink ba back into the shadows that you're
about to walk by so they can do the same thing,
and you go, oh, hello.

Speaker 1 (10:04):
Yeah, Homer back into the bushes, and it's like, am
I not supposed to acknowledge the fact that you're fucking
soh If I don't acknowledge it, then then people behind
me actually get to get scared, right, So I'm going
to do a solid and not be a dickhead. Then Yeah,
have you ever actually been genuinely scared in a haunted house?

Speaker 3 (10:21):
Though?

Speaker 2 (10:22):
Not a single time? No, not at all. But I
guess for anybody not watching it and only listening on
the podcast version of this, I should I should explain
a few caveats of why I like haunted houses, because
I like horror. Haunted houses don't really work for me.
First of all, I'm I'm six foot five and on
a good month of my life when I'm not at

(10:44):
my absolute heaviest, I weigh at least three hundred and
seventy five pounds. I'm a massive dude, And so some
of these things like ats, I'll just start the story
and where we're gonna finish it later on, because I
have a funny story to go with this. But in
Kansas City, in what they call the wet spots. It's
basically the industrial part of town. Every single year, for
literally only the month of October, they open up three

(11:07):
hunted houses that are right next to each other, that
are built into these really old industrial buildings. And one
of them, the quote scary part is that like, you
come around one hallway and it's normal. You go around
the next hallway and it's suddenly you have to duck
to go through the whole thing because oh no, the
ceiling is lower when you're six foot five and you

(11:27):
have to duck for everybody that ceiling is less than
five feet tall. I'm fucked. I can't see anything, and
I'm now knees bent and crouched all the way over
and just screwed. Everything hurts, It's all uncomfortable. There was
one part of this haunted house I had to crawl
through that sucked. That's not fun. And then it ended

(11:48):
with the slide. Not scary whatsoever. There's so much of
this that just simply does not work. The end of
the story. We're gonna talk about the second hunted house,
but that's gonna come up when we start answering our question.

Speaker 3 (12:00):
This place.

Speaker 1 (12:00):
It sounds very much like Cutting Edge. Cutting Edge was
built in a old meat packing YEP factory and it's
like it's I mean, it's massive. And to your point,
I never got scared there. The scariest thing was.

Speaker 3 (12:13):
At the end.

Speaker 1 (12:14):
And I don't know what it is with haunted houses
that I've been too clearly similar later to you, haunted
houses have a real third act problem.

Speaker 3 (12:21):
As one might say, Yes.

Speaker 1 (12:22):
The one that I went to, the scariest part was
the third act, and that was because you had to
walk through one of those giant like bubble walls of
like foam, and the foam was like I'm not even joking.
It was like maybe twelve fifteen feet high and maybe
twenty thirty forty feet You can't breathe through it. That's
the scariest part is like I'm feeling like I'm going
to be suffocating at any moment.

Speaker 3 (12:43):
Now.

Speaker 1 (12:43):
This is much scarier than some guy dancing around with
a chainsaw, Like I am feeling actual physical dread here,
not a guy chasing after me with a chain saw
with no blade on it.

Speaker 2 (12:53):
I I if for anybody watching too, you just saw
I had a revelation while you were saying that, I
totally forgot. I did go through one that kind of
scared me. I was lucky enough to be in Las
Vegas when eli Roth had his Gorratorium open. It was
only open for a couple of years, and my wife
and I went through it, and it was really well made.
Obviously it's eli Roth, He's got a shit ton of money.
They supposedly they had like no income, like hardly anybody

(13:15):
went through this thing, but it was really well built.
It was I think there was like a couple stairs,
so it might have been like a split barely not
even two story, but like a split level one and
a half type stories. There was a room where there
was a fake wedding that was really well done. I
jumped a little bit because the whole point of these
things is it's quiet and then they jump out and

(13:36):
scream and so loud noises make people jump. So that
was the big thing. But going up to the very
end of this thing, exact same thing, it was a
giant bubble wall thing and it literally felt like you
were being berthed into the world. Again, that's not scary,
it's just if this is in my face, I feel
like I'm suffocating, and that's that's terrifying because I don't
want to die.

Speaker 1 (13:57):
Interesting side note for guest of the show, Father Malone,
who did horror movie anthologies with us.

Speaker 3 (14:04):
He worked at the goratorium.

Speaker 1 (14:06):
No, so you may have even been scared by or
attempted to be scared by Father Malone, who is also
six foot three to your six foot five.

Speaker 3 (14:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (14:16):
I was about to say most of the haunted houses
I've been to, the building codes are also rather suspect,
and so yeah, I mean, being a above average height
human being and for most of my life above average weight,
they were not easy for me. I can't imagine a
gentleman of your stature like, get me the fuck out

(14:36):
of here.

Speaker 3 (14:36):
That's not the point, sir.

Speaker 1 (14:38):
Get me out now, or I will start shaking this
thing to the ground around you.

Speaker 2 (14:44):
We'll talk about those building codes when we get to
that quote funny story in a little while.

Speaker 1 (14:48):
Unquote funny, Well, I will. I will tell my own
story before we get into the question. The only time
I've ever been truly scared at a haunted house other
than the Birthing Canal when they did their job correctly
be a Missouri We went out to a haunted house
with some friends of mine and it was. It was
one of these things where you go through the haunted
house and then you get on the hay ride and
they take you out into the middle of a cornfield

(15:09):
and they're like, just.

Speaker 3 (15:09):
Get to the other side of the cornfield in the dark, which.

Speaker 1 (15:12):
Was that wasn't scary. It's just like this seems like
an oversight by a lot of accounts. We walked into
this room and there was a bed and it was
like what you're talking about, like quiet, and I was
standing there with my two friends from college. Unbeknownst to me,
there was a person in a cutout on the ceiling
kind of like this. So they were like up against

(15:33):
they were flushed with the ceiling and they rah, they
jumped down.

Speaker 3 (15:37):
I fucking took off like shut.

Speaker 1 (15:40):
And what's funny is like I remember distinctly that the
door to the exit of the room was out went outside,
essentially to the next part of the haunted house.

Speaker 3 (15:49):
I was like, I'm fucking out of here. I'll just
be outside.

Speaker 1 (15:52):
But it was like okay, Like that got me cause
again it was like, oh, I'm expecting something in the
bed and there she is above it. So the mystery
of it all right, that's that's what the Haunted houses
are classic.

Speaker 2 (16:05):
I figure we should probably list some of the movies
that would fall under the genre, just in case you've
not heard any of these. And we're probably not going
to be talking about most of these films tonight because
most of them are not giant winners. We'll say so
some that would fall into this is the houses October built,
The Houses October built two hell House LLC, the first one,

(16:27):
the second one, and the third one, the movie Haunt
from twenty nineteen hell Fest blood Fest. And then there
are a handful of others you want to add to
that list a little bit, because I'm not sure entirely
which ones are you're saying fall on there too.

Speaker 1 (16:42):
The ones that I'm talking about are more non fiction,
like Haunters and Spookers and scare Zone. But those are
more like again, I didn't want it, not that I
wouldn't say this needs to be purely fictional, but like
some of this also like just to see what's going
on is also interesting. But I think you covered pretty
much everything again, and we've already mentioned like the things

(17:03):
we can't the things we are not allowed to talk about.

Speaker 2 (17:07):
I'm not going to hear about these documentaries for sure,
because I didn't even know they existed.

Speaker 1 (17:13):
Well, in that case, let's get on to the first question. So, Ryan,
I'm gonna pose a question to you that's been asked
for multi, multi, multiple millennia, and now I'm asking it
to you. What is a foundational title for films about
Haunt attractions?

Speaker 2 (17:32):
All right, so there's one movie on this list specifically
that we have talked about quite extensively together. I could
have easily ran to that one.

Speaker 1 (17:41):
Unfortunately, Okay, throw shade immediately because I may have done that. Wow,
I could have done that, but I wouldn't deign to
make the obvious time.

Speaker 3 (17:55):
It was hilarious. It was funny as fuck.

Speaker 2 (17:57):
By the way, I want to finish because I know
that I knew that you were gonna pick it, so
I didn't want to choose the exact same one. But
I do have a reason that I wanted to pick
this other one. I'm gonna go with Haunt from twenty nineteen.

Speaker 3 (18:08):
Ok.

Speaker 2 (18:08):
And I think this is a little more I don't
want to say like cliche or trope filled version.

Speaker 3 (18:16):
Of this, but it is.

Speaker 1 (18:17):
It is no, no, no, not like not in a
bad like I would say that without any of the
pejoratives about it. It is like, I know where you're
going with this, and I one hundred percent agree, even
if it's not in the negative.

Speaker 2 (18:31):
Okay, So what I'm getting at is if you ask
anybody on the street, how would you make a movie
about a haunt attraction, they would say, let's just have
it a hant attraction and the people that work there
start killing you.

Speaker 3 (18:42):
That's what I mean.

Speaker 2 (18:43):
Like, and that's literally what this movie is.

Speaker 3 (18:45):
It's fucking on the nose.

Speaker 2 (18:46):
It's literally on the nose. It is really well made
for what it does, the Haunt attraction, surprisingly well designed.
It's a pretty movie. It's fun to look at the
cast itself. Not any big names, so you're not distracted
by like, I don't even know who would do something
like this, Like Sean William Scott is not moseying through

(19:06):
a hant attraction and being attacked out of nowhere. Uh
what's that?

Speaker 3 (19:12):
I mean?

Speaker 1 (19:12):
I would watch that movie though, now that you mention it, well,
I'm sure it'd be funny. But yeah, to your point, Yeah,
and I don't think any of the movies that we're
mentioning have any that's again, that may be the success
here overall is none of these movies really have anybody
that you would be like, I, oh, look that's a
good call.

Speaker 3 (19:30):
Oh look that guy works at Target as a model.

Speaker 2 (19:34):
I guess we'll talk about that later. But yeah, Hount
twenty nineteen works really well. I think it has a
fun setup. It is not super intimidating until it needs
to be, and then when it gets scary, Like if
you're not into horror movies all the time, I could
totally see this being something that actually scares somebody watching this,

(19:55):
and it it does come across as a bit of
a slasher, even though it's not a slasher because like
the way I personally define slasher, it would normally be
a single person or a couple of people working together
to kill even though that's kind of what's happening here,
but it's not. It's not built the same way as
a slasher. It's not like anyways, I don't need to
define slasher. We'll do a slasher episode later.

Speaker 1 (20:17):
Don't ruin haunt, but I get but there is part
of the movie that's like, is what is happening actually
happening or not?

Speaker 2 (20:25):
Right?

Speaker 1 (20:26):
And that's that is the part of the movie that
I think because I watched.

Speaker 3 (20:29):
It today, by the way, for the first time, and all.

Speaker 1 (20:31):
One time, I did not pick it because I a
kind of assumed one of us would, and so you did,
and you kind of assumed that one of us was going.

Speaker 3 (20:43):
To pick what I picked, and I did.

Speaker 1 (20:46):
Yeah, I mean, Haunt I think is like you said,
like for all, for all of the tropes and all
the other obviousness, it is exactly the kind of movie
that it sounds like. People go to a haunted house,
people get killed in a haunted house by the people
who run the haunted house. Like you said, if you
asked anybody on the street what the Haunted House movie
is gonna be, that's it, like like I said, and

(21:08):
like you said, that is exactly all it needs to be.
And it's fine for what it is. I think the
reveal is kind of moronic and the funniest way.

Speaker 3 (21:17):
It's kind of like Tails from the Crypt.

Speaker 1 (21:19):
It's like it tails from the Crypt episode at the end,
it like it's all of a sudden like some sort
of weird like they're.

Speaker 3 (21:25):
Trying to steal their faces. What, like, what the fuck?

Speaker 1 (21:30):
I mean, sure, fine, whatever the thing that you really
touched on that. I do want to reinforce the design
is really interesting. The character masks are really interesting. I
think the movie drags its feet a little too much
about the you know, is it or isn't it happening?
I think it needs to do like one scene less
of trying to convince us something isn't happening, because, like

(21:56):
the movie, the movie that they want you to think
they're doing is not nearly as interesting as the movie
they end up doing, which is again rather straightforward. But
for for someone who doesn't like haunted houses, this is
not going to be like, Yay, I'm gonna go out
to a haunted house now because I'm gonna have my
face fucking ripped off. And that's isn't it the most
Isn't that the most like Halloween thing of all? Like

(22:17):
you're stealing people's faces to make masks out of it, Like.

Speaker 2 (22:21):
Especially if you enjoy looking at pictures of kids from
nineteen twenty eight in masks, right.

Speaker 1 (22:27):
Yeah, pretty much like that's the other thing. It kind
of makes those like traditional like beastal masks, like it
makes them really kind of scary.

Speaker 3 (22:36):
No, I actually I enjoyed it.

Speaker 1 (22:37):
I did not dislike the movie at all. I found
it to be charming on its own kind of merits
without needing to like quantity. Like you said, it doesn't
need any quantification because it's the most obvious movie.

Speaker 3 (22:49):
It's shocking it.

Speaker 1 (22:50):
Hadn't been made before, is really what it comes down to, right, Like,
that's maybe the biggest surprise it is.

Speaker 2 (22:58):
It is stereotypical, and not in a bad way, because honestly,
any any genre needs something at its basal level. This
is this is part of the pun here, but like,
this is the foundation that Hant movies could and should
have been built off of. This theoretically should have been
the first hot movie ever made, and funny enough, it

(23:18):
comes out later than almost all of them.

Speaker 1 (23:21):
Well, I mean, if you wanted to mention the one
that ostensibly came out first, you'd mentioned the houses that
October built. But you'll notice, as I'm about to answer
the question, that's not what Ryan thought I was going
to pick, because he knows that's not the movie that
I was going to pick, because, like you've already alluded to,
my pick is one hundred percent Hell House LLC, which

(23:42):
I think is I think it makes a case for
being like one of the best found footage movies ever made.
If not like US top three, maybe might even be
number one. I don't think it's ever one for me.
I think there's like three movies. I think there are
three movies in there that I could interchange at any point,
and hell House is one of them. But hell House
LLC great premise. It's pseudo nonfiction, which I really appreciate,

(24:06):
like it sells the gimmick all the way, like it
sells it all the way, which if you're gonna do
it right it don't open up a themed restaurant and
then don't give me themed cocktails, you dickheads. That's the
argument here, Like if you're gonna make a mockumentary or
a found footage movie, I want the moment it opens
to the moment it closes being in the universe. Credits,

(24:27):
I get it. Credits are credits, if you even do credits.
Why do credits in a found footage movie. I understand
to give people credit, YadA YadA, But I'm talking about
in keeping the universe, in building and keeping in the world.
Hell House LLC does it better than pretty much most
found footage movies, if not all of them, shoe string
budget and the hook is great. Five people go to

(24:49):
a house in upstate New York to set up a
haunted attraction and it turns out the house might actually
be haunted. That's the other way you do a haunted movie.
It's either the people in the haunted attraction are psychos
and killing people, or the people running the attraction set
it up at a place where either they conjure demons

(25:10):
by accident, which we haven't really seen that one, or
they conjureum intentionally, which we've kind of seen that one,
but I don't want to say which one, or they're
already there, which is hell House LLC. And yeah, if
haunt is one A of how you do these kinds
of movies, hell House LLC is also one A, if

(25:32):
not one B. They're like, these are the two ways
ostensibly that you would do this, the way haunted houses
are or haunted attractions are presented in this country.

Speaker 2 (25:42):
Credit where credits do This movie is amazing. I will
say this is it's clearly not a perfect movie, but
in its genre it is top tier one hundred percent.
I don't know that it's probably not top three found
footage from but it's easily top five through ten. I've
always loved found footage films. You and I have talked

(26:04):
about those to death, of course. But one thing that
I will say is this movie kills it with the lore.
Stephen Cognetti knows what he's writing. He knows, he knows
what he's gonna put two movies down the line, and
it might not make sense now, but when he finally
gets to that movie in seven years, he'll tie up
that bow perfectly. This movie is actually scary. There's multiple

(26:27):
scenes in this movie that are pretty damn chilling that
if you are not used to horror movies, I could
see really fucking somebody up and yeah, this is a
great pick.

Speaker 3 (26:39):
It's done so well it almost feels real. Yeah, Mike,
And you know what?

Speaker 1 (26:44):
Like that, in a lot of ways is the Bechdel
test of found footage horror movies, right, Like could I
show this to someone then them be like is this real?

Speaker 2 (26:54):
Right?

Speaker 1 (26:55):
And like for me, I've shown Hell House to a
couple people. I shall ghost Watch to some people and
like if you can get that moment from them, like
that's the success with found footage horrors, Like is this
fucking real thing?

Speaker 3 (27:07):
Like? What are you what are you showing me here?

Speaker 1 (27:09):
And hell House has that, and hell House is like
no budget. It's they do so much with clown maquettes
that it makes my brain melt to the point where
in there in the fourth movie in this series, they're
still doing shit with clown mackettes. That is like more
nuanced than most big budget horror movies that have large,

(27:31):
large directors. See something like Exorcist. Believers like, give someone
like Stephen Cocknetti an actual budget for an actual movie
and see what he can do with it, because look
at what he's doing with practically nothing, you know, some
money from his family and friends. And again, hell House
LLC is a movie I returned to frequently.

Speaker 3 (27:49):
It gave me a.

Speaker 1 (27:49):
Reason to put it on today, to the point where
my wife came in and goes, haven't you seen this
movie enough?

Speaker 3 (27:55):
It's like I have, but I kind of low key
enjoy it.

Speaker 2 (28:00):
Yeah, I love this movie. By the time you're hearing this,
I believe the prior year we will have discussed this
in depth on the Culture Cast. We talked about these
right after the fourth one came out. I had never
seen the second or third one, or obviously the fourth one.
Right before it came out, so we got really fresh

(28:21):
in my mind to discuss all those in this specific
genre tonight. The first three would fall squarely in the genre,
the fourth one not quite so much, which again props
to Stephen Cognetti. The fact that you can make those
clowns work and you're not even in the haunted attraction anymore,
that is mind boggling, and I love him for it.

Speaker 1 (28:41):
Yeah, he's he's doing a lot with a whole hell
of a lot of nothing, really, like more than I'd
be able to do with what he had. And yeah,
I mean the first three are pretty great. The fourth
one is great on its own merits in its own
weird way, and it does kind of like you mentioned,
the less said about it, the better the better. But
it takes place in an actual haunted house, which is

(29:02):
why we can't talk about it here. So yeah, but
the first one is definitely for me, like the foundational
pick here, But to your point, like Haunt and It
are sitting on very even ground.

Speaker 2 (29:15):
Well, and honestly, there are two very different films, so
it's really easy here to say if you've never seen
a movie about a haunted attraction, and this sounds enticing
to you tonight, which do you prefer? Do you prefer
a more realistic take or a supernatural take. If it's realistic,
go towards Haunt. If it's more supernatural and that's scarier
to you, go towards Hellhouse LLC. And guess what, you

(29:38):
might love them both. You might love one or the other.
And it's a perfectly fine duo here, depending on which
style you might align with better.

Speaker 1 (29:45):
Yeah, totally, because again, I know, I know you say
found footage to some people and they like, run for
the fucking hills, So and look Hell House LLC. I
think again to reinforce, like if you're trepidacious about found footage.
It's also kind of a documentary, so like it's a
it's a mockumentary. I really don't like that term because
like I don't know, like I know that there's no

(30:07):
other way to say fae documentary, but mockumentary, Like I
don't know. It always makes me think like they're trying
to make me laugh, and it's like, very rarely are
they doing that.

Speaker 3 (30:17):
Hell House LLCA is a.

Speaker 1 (30:18):
Really good example of a specific kind of movie. It
also just happens to fit into this category.

Speaker 3 (30:24):
As well.

Speaker 2 (30:25):
I agree, good call.

Speaker 1 (30:27):
So Ryan, if they go out there and check out
Haunt and Hell House LLC. What might be a less
foundational pick but more of a deep cut to suggest
to someone in Haunt attraction films.

Speaker 2 (30:45):
So one I enjoyed, but I think one that might
turn some people away if they watch it first, primarily
because I mean, compared to some of these others, it's
kind of boring, but it still has some good merits.
I kind of want to give just a little bit
of love Healthfest from twenty eighteen. I do want to
say there's some kills in this one that are fun.
This one's also interesting too, because it's kind of a

(31:08):
horror theme park. So like the entire area is the
Haunted Attraction. It's it's not necessarily a carnival movie because
it's this entire theme park built literally to scare you.
It's like Universal's Haunted Horror. It's like not Scary Farm,
all those things that we've all heard about whatever. But yeah,

(31:28):
this movie, it's got a mask killer that you see.
The mask itself honestly doesn't work that well for me.
I kind of wish they went with a more more.

Speaker 1 (31:40):
So.

Speaker 2 (31:41):
Yeah, the mask in hell Fest is sort of bland,
but again, the kills are worth it. For this one,
I could see somebody that is deep in the horror
genre approaching this and watching it and walking away going, yeah, yeah,
there's a movie. I will say that for a lot
of these, you know, budget not with stay. I'm I'm

(32:01):
a big fan of, you know, trying to find something
to appreciate in every single film you watch, and this
has a lot of things going for it. And at
the time it was a minor hit, Like for how
much this movie cost, it did pretty well. A lot
of people saw this. Unfortunately most of those people forgot
it promptly right after. But it is a It is
a movie that I think that if you watch it

(32:22):
in twenty twenty four after going to a haunt, or
even better like preparing to go to a haunt, you
probably have a great time.

Speaker 1 (32:31):
Never seen it, but I remember that. Remember the trailers
for it. It was like, it's a haunted theme park,
and I was like, that could be a fun lark.
Never saw it, but glad to know it's kind of
a fun lark.

Speaker 3 (32:43):
Yeah, exactly, speaking of fun larks.

Speaker 1 (32:47):
So my answer for this is the house is that
October Built. I think credit has to be given where
credit is due, because the house is that October built,
came before hell House LLC by a year. Houses that
October Built also as a special place in my heart
because it is the movie that I remember distinctly watching

(33:08):
and putting out on Facebook about that caused the culture
cast to exist. That was the movie I was watching
at the time, and I was typing up about it
on Facebook, and then one thing led to another, and
now I've been podcasting for ten years. So Houses that
October Built I have somewhat to blame for that. However,

(33:28):
I will say if you want to take a complete
and utter one eighty for most everything we've been suggesting.
Haunters The Art of the Scare is a very good
non fiction piece read as documentary about focuses on a
couple different characters within the world of haunting, but it

(33:49):
is a very early look at mccamee Manor, which was
featured in a documentary oh last year on Investigation Discovery
where they were trying to I'm not gonna defend the
guy who runs it, but if your idea of a
good time in a haunted house is having someone call
you names and make you vomit and do all sorts
of really extreme stuff like waterboarding and being thrown into

(34:11):
coffins with snakes. And that's your idea of a good time.
If you sign a waiver, motherfucker, that's on you. That's
all I'm saying. And Mcamie Manner has kind of gotten
a bad rap recently. Like I said, I'm not defending it.
I'm just saying, if people make choices, choices are being
made and things are being signed, if people are doing
it because they're being coerced, different thing. But Haunters talks

(34:32):
a little bit about kind of extreme scares, but it
also focuses on a woman who is working at not
Scary farm for like thirty years. It also focuses on
a guy whose wife hates the idea of him doing
Halloween when they have kids, and it's like Halloween is
his mistress, I think, is what he says at one point,
like it's it's look the people that run these things,

(34:53):
their characters, is what I'm saying. And someone turned the
camera on them and said, wouldn't it be interesting to
see what these people are like? Yes, it in fact
is interesting. So those are my two kind of answers
very different, but at the same time, House Is That
October Built. It's interesting because ostensibly, best I can tell
is like found footage in other people's haunted houses, because again,

(35:17):
like the conceit of the movie is like they're going
to try to find the most extreme haunted house, and
they're taking their cameras through these haunted houses that they
go through them, some of them seem like real haunted houses,
and they juxtapose it with real footage too, so it's
a little hell housey like hell House is a better
version of House Is That October Built, but it's the
first one. But again, nonfiction, I think is also a

(35:39):
very interesting route to go down because again, the people
who run these things gotta be they gotta.

Speaker 3 (35:45):
Be crazy too.

Speaker 1 (35:46):
This is a lot of work for one month of
the year, or in some of these people's cases, one day.

Speaker 2 (35:52):
There is a you know, speaking of characters that run
these things, there is a small town, well a small
ish town on the outskirts of Kansas City called Independence, Missouri,
and a lot of people have heard of it because
it's like the start of the Oregon Trail, and I
think it's part of the Mormon Trail. A few other things,
like it's a pretty well known little city, and there

(36:13):
is a family that had a haunted backyard essentially that
they set up every year. It went in slightly different
routes each year. But these people put money to this thing.
We're talking like twenty five thousand dollars and then charge
people to come do this, and it turned into this
giant thing, like cops had to come rope off sections

(36:35):
for cars to park. Turn to this big thing. And unfortunately,
just after COVID they got into like this major fight
with the city, and now the city came and literally
confiscated items from them. And so now these people that
are they were already kooky, now they're like anti government
and getting people to side with them and sign petitions.

(36:55):
And it's like, okay, hold on, we're getting a little
out of control. We needed to make we were staying
within the laws and stuff, but now things are starting
to feel a little weird on both sides.

Speaker 1 (37:07):
So the word we're looking for is white Christian nationalists.
All of a sudden, all of a sudden, the people
running haunted houses just go, I'm anti government.

Speaker 3 (37:16):
I mean, you know what they say.

Speaker 1 (37:18):
It's a slippery slope out there be careful which the
ski slope you decide to go down today.

Speaker 2 (37:24):
That's what Kevin Smith's Red State was about.

Speaker 3 (37:27):
Haunted houses are a slippery slope folk.

Speaker 1 (37:30):
I mean, what's funny is mckamie manner is essentially the
story of that place is the same thing. Like guy
was doing this thing for ten years, decided after a
while he wanted to amp it up and do something
a little bit more intense, and then the city goes
you can't do that because you're literally making your neighbors scared.

Speaker 3 (37:46):
For what's going on in your backyard.

Speaker 1 (37:48):
I mean, these people in Kansas City, they sound similar
to the people that run VALA's Pumpkin Patch outside of Omaha,
which is a seasonal offering that you can go pick
pumpkins and go through haunted houses. But they're very kid friendly.
So read that as not remotely fucking scary, if even
manned by people at all. But that being said, yeah,

(38:12):
people are run haunted houses. They gotta love Halloween, and
if they don't, why are they doing it?

Speaker 2 (38:18):
It's great question, and I think that kind of answers
our third question perfectly, at least for me. So I
will I will mosey into that third question. Third question
always is what is the biggest impact that our subject
tonight has had on pop culture? And this one, I
think is going to be sort of a circular answer
for me because obviously the popularity of hants makes these

(38:39):
movies popular, but then the popularity of these movies make
haunts popular, so they sort of feed into each other,
and hant culture is huge. Now like this is this
is a weird I don't not like wow, let me
roll that back. I'm not calling anybody out that likes
these as you know, inferior or your strange or anything.
But it's sort of a a an odd subgenre to

(39:03):
crop up out of nowhere and be super big all
of a sudden, Like there have been haunted attractions that
have shown up on Shark Tank to get investments. That's
how like massive this thing has grown for And when
you look at what it is, people people travel around
to find these. They view these as like they're they're
Mount Rushmore. They are going to something that they've heard about,

(39:23):
they've read about, they want to experience. You know, I'm
sure we've all read about these crazy ones in LA
where you sign away, where you could be kidnapped, sometime
in the next three weeks.

Speaker 3 (39:32):
And whack out, Baby.

Speaker 2 (39:33):
It's not just a haunted attraction, it's your life will
be haunted and you are fucked.

Speaker 3 (39:38):
David, which ventures the game?

Speaker 1 (39:40):
I mean, I mean David Fincher's the game is pretty
much what you're talking about, like being amplified in a
way that's like, this is what I want, Like, I
want it.

Speaker 3 (39:49):
I want it. I don't want to know where the
pounds of reality ended begin.

Speaker 2 (39:54):
I don't want to sound like a tool, but this
part of that kind of sounds enjoyable. So anyways, Yeah,
this is genuinely a thing. It has fed into this
big culture. And this is where I want to lead
into my question, is they're not my question my funny
story I alluded to earlier. There are a lot of
times where these are we will say, built haphazardly to

(40:18):
say the least.

Speaker 1 (40:19):
Eh, let's put it out there to some of these things,
if the wind blew just right, you would go down
with it on top of you.

Speaker 2 (40:29):
Yeah. So let's talk about those Kansas City haunts like
I brought up at the very beginning. Like I said,
there are three little haunted houses that are built next
to each other, and they are pretty small. To walk
through these things takes less than twelve minutes ish when
you're walking at a fairly leisurely paced and we are.
We did this first one where like I said, I

(40:50):
had to crawl. We went in little hallways where you
had a duck and go under and stuff. So we
go and wait in line for almost an hour for
the second one that we already had tickets for. So
if we left, we'd be losing a lot of money.
And these things they cost a lot to get in.
We're talking like twenty five dollars a person.

Speaker 3 (41:07):
Ey cheap folks, cutting edge.

Speaker 1 (41:09):
Last time I went there in twenty fourteen was thirty
five dollars a person.

Speaker 2 (41:14):
Yeah, I think we only got them for twenty five
because we got the bundle for both, and the first
one was like forty dollars a person. If you added
one on it was another twenty five. So yeah, so
for that whole night for two, we spent like one
hundred and ten dollars something like that for two people
to go through two haunted houses. And so we get
to the second one and we are we're tired, we

(41:35):
are beat. We've already been standing in line for a
long time for two houses, because the first one was
way longer than an hour. We're going through the second one,
and they have this thing on the inside decorated fairly well,
like some of it looks like a decent movie set.
Because it is a movie themed haunted house. They have
it set up when you're coming in to look like

(41:56):
you're walking into the front of a theater. You go
inside and there's like, here, let's look through the back
sets of how they film some of these, and so
there was like a bayou room where there was a
rope bridge to walk across. There's like an old shack
next to it, and somebody jumps out. Of course, they
even had a little bit of water to make it
look like there was a little swamp action going on.

(42:18):
But the whole point was there was a lot of
dust and dirt in this entire thing. And what's crazy
this thing had at one point you were walking through
this it is much longer than the first one. You're
walking through for about ten minutes. There is a spiral
staircase that is old and rusty and metal that goes
up at least the height of about two floors. You

(42:42):
come up at the top and you're exhausted now because
you just walked up a spiral staircase, a very small
one when you're six foot five and you have your
shoes are size eighteen to go up every step sucks.
So I'm going through and we go down a staircase.
So now we went up two flights of stairs. I
went down a stair and now we're in this this
like we're almost to the end level. We're walking around

(43:03):
and I'm with my mom. I forgot to share that
at the beginning. My mom, she's not super old, she's
not super young, she's not super old. She's in front
of me, and she comes around to what is clearly
like we hear people talking, this is the end of
the haunted house, and it is about fifteen steps to
get to the end. There's a little area where you
can buy snacks at the bottom and all that, there's
bathrooms whatever. She takes the first step, and I'm looking

(43:25):
back to see what we just came from, and I
hear tumbling. I turn my head back and she is
falling down this entire flight of stairs, which is fifteen stairs,
head over feet overhead over feet, rolling down the stairs,
and I shriek because my mom just collapse in front
of me. I I yell, mom, I take one step

(43:50):
and what was the problem which I had no idea.
All of this dust taked the entire flight of stairs,
so it was literally like walking on Mars when I
took that step. So my foot immediately went out from
under me, and my giant fucking arm, which is a
huge arm, slams full speed into the banister for the staircase,

(44:13):
and I'm like riding on my ass down the staircase,
land on top of my mom at the bottom of
the staircase, and I hear multiple employees running over. Oh
my god, are you okay? We were both fine, not hurt,
Like there was no blood, nobody's bones were broken. They
didn't even offer us a discount.

Speaker 3 (44:32):
Chris, what in God's name?

Speaker 2 (44:35):
No refund, not even a bottle of water?

Speaker 3 (44:38):
Did you go to unit? Was this at Universal Studios?

Speaker 2 (44:41):
This city, middle of nowhere?

Speaker 3 (44:44):
God? Uh?

Speaker 2 (44:45):
Yeah, this was It was appalling. And what's crazy? Like,
I don't I'm not gonna show anything here, but like
this is where I hit. I'm showing the bottom of
my arm here, like between my elbow and my shoulder,
and there is still a lump on the muscle of
my arm from where I hit that staircase and it
spend a year and a half.

Speaker 3 (45:01):
Chris yikes.

Speaker 1 (45:03):
Yeah, hey man, Like I said, those building inspectors, man,
they're not They're not going in there.

Speaker 3 (45:09):
It's scary.

Speaker 1 (45:10):
They heard there's monsters in there. I can't in good
conscience pass a building that has monsters. And this place
has been condemned. That's not what happens. Yeah, it's I'm
to say, I'm glad nothing has ever happened when I've
been in One is to is to put it mildly,
a lot of these things are fucking death traps, and
one of these days something's gonna happen and yeah, poof,

(45:33):
one of them's gonna go up and smoke and kill
a bunch of people because they can't get out because
of bad eggsits or something. And then because in Haunters
they talk about places like mckamie manor that are like
pushing the envelope and again like waterboarding people and stuff,
And one of the guys goes, you know, this is
the one way ticket to getting our industry regulated by
the government. No, the one way ticket is for Haunted

(45:54):
House to burn down because it's poorly constructed, because there's
a bunch of Yoho's building it, saying that's all the case.
If you're listening to this and you run a reputable
haunted house, you have nothing to worry about. But that's
pretty fucked up to say the least. I mean, hey,
like I said, is this being run by Universal Studios?

(46:16):
I will say for me, the kind of what is
the effect of pop culture that these movies have had?
It's just wish fulfillment. It's getting to see the worst
of a haunted house that you don't get to see
in reality, a haunted one that's actually haunted or one
that has actual killers inside of it. To your point, like,
it is weird now that Universal Halloween Haunted Horror Nights

(46:38):
or Jesus Christ Halloween Horror Nights. Is that what it's called, right,
I'm such a huge fan. I don't even know Halloween
Horror Nights. Yeah, it's such a big thing. Like when
I was in La my friend that I was staying with,
like he was like, yeah, my son goes to Universal
Studios every year for Halloween Horror Nights, Like he doesn't
go to Universal Studio otherwise. Is best I can tell,

(46:59):
And yeah, I mean to your point, those wines on
those haunted houses three to four hours.

Speaker 3 (47:05):
Sometimes to go.

Speaker 1 (47:07):
But they're also like there's nothing higher that is the
pinnacle because it is produced by Universal Studios. So, like
you said, right now, I don't think theme parks have
ever been any more popular than they are now. I
think we're in a golden age of theme parks. Look,
you mentioned Eli Roth's Oratorium in Las Vegas will be

(47:30):
a permanent horror based attraction owned by Universal Studios, made
for people who go to Universal Studios in La or
in Orlando but have never been able to go to
the haunted things. Now they can go to all haunted
one in Las Vegas, plus all the people from around
the world who go to Vegas for god knows what,

(47:51):
because it's not really just the United States capital of Sin,
it's kind of the capital of sin from around the world.
So as I'm concerned, all this is done is really
just make haunted houses bigger business than ever before. To
the tune of like I said, Universal Studio is building
a permanent horror themed and focused attraction in Las Vegas.

Speaker 3 (48:14):
Which I cannot fucking wait for.

Speaker 1 (48:16):
But on top of that, there is permanent haunted attractions
in Las Vegas. Now there's uh It and uh blair
Witch at least and maybe even saw still that are
you know, licensed and put on by big production companies
that are trying to up the ante, because one of

(48:37):
the ways you up the anti is by branding the
shit out of it. And you know, at one point,
Halloween Horror Nights was just you know, oh Bigfoot or
Yetti or Tupac. Now it's Stranger Things or walking Dead,
and it's like, okay, so I see the things are
being co opted by the big brands, But how else
do you makes things popular? Lean into the things that

(48:58):
everybody already loves? Am I saying I hate it?

Speaker 3 (49:01):
No?

Speaker 1 (49:01):
Am I saying I love it? Definitely not? But am
I saying I'm appreciative that it's made more people interested
in haunted houses, which is only good for haunted houses.

Speaker 3 (49:09):
Yes, that is what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (49:11):
The weirdest one of those is the Weekend Haunted Horror
Night House whatever it's called. Like the fact that we
have one dedicated to his music videography like that is
such a weird, random ass happenstance.

Speaker 1 (49:27):
I'm surprised you didn't mention the Penn and Teller one
where it was about a nuclear holocaust happening in Las Vegas,
where they would sometimes just be in the haunted house
standing there as themselves, which is also a great thing
that you can do if you have it based off
of a real person. But yeah, I mean that's for me.
Is I think just kind of feeding into this haunted

(49:49):
house culture we now have in this country where Halloween
has never been bigger and every year it grows and
spirit Halloween is a part of that. Halloween horrornites a
part of that, and a haunted house is in general
as a.

Speaker 3 (50:04):
Thing, are part of that as well.

Speaker 1 (50:06):
It's a thing every year I look forward to, and
it's a thing that I haven't done since the pandemic happened,
And so maybe this will be the first year I
go and do a haunted house. But not since the pandemic,
I've I've been to a haunted house. But yeah, haunted
house is for me. Haunted house movies are haunted attraction
movies are just wish fulfillment. You want to see someone
die in a haunted house. Nobody wants to see that
for real, But here's a haunt, go watch that.

Speaker 2 (50:28):
So is that are you glomming onto my response to
question number three as well, the biggest impact on pop culture?

Speaker 1 (50:36):
Yeah, I mean, I don't think there's really anything else,
Like I said, I mean, for me, my answer is
wish fulfillment. Just you know, sickos who wanted to see
bad things happen in a haunted house get to see
it in fiction, which that's my answer. I mean again,
I think horror movies are wish for you ever want
to see someone's head get frozen and liquid nitrogen and smashed,
You can do that in Jason X. You don't have
to watch a real you know, horror movies in general

(50:58):
are wish fulfillment. Like it's just the worst kind of wishes,
which are like what what had? What would happen if
someone decided to kill people that had wronged them?

Speaker 3 (51:07):
And you get saw?

Speaker 1 (51:08):
So I mean, I think that's maybe just a too
broad of an answer. But with something specific like haunted
houses or haunted attractions that evoke such a visceral reaction
from people as it is making them the worst versions
of themselves is really the you know, the obvious answer here.

Speaker 2 (51:27):
Yeah, And I mean the whole wish fulfillment thing goes deep.
I mean, there are egregious examples, Like there was an
interview I did on my on my show that there
was somebody that directed a short film back in like
the mid nineties with a rock star basically who who
told him behind the scenes that he had thoughts of

(51:48):
wanting to kill people. And the guy was like, well,
you can't do that in real life. Let's just make
a movie out of it. And so they got a
fan to come in who literally said, yeah, you could
do anything to me, just don't kill me. They ended
up fucking carving the name of the film into his chest.

Speaker 1 (52:03):
And I said, what people want to go to mccaymie
man or to be waterboarded and tortured and put through
physical violence, Like you know that there are people in
the world that have had physical violence done against them
against their own will, and I don't think that they
were asking for it willingly. So it's a weird like
pushing of your boundaries in a lot of ways. I

(52:24):
look at haunted houses like I look at something like
fear factor, like overcoming your fears, like you know, to
be to say we all live at least in the
Western world, the Western hemisphere, the north Western hemisphere. Live
very safe lives is an understatement, and to go to
a haunted house or watch a horror movie is to

(52:46):
have some genuine terror introduced into your life. I mean
it's contained in safe terror, but for a lot of people,
going to a haunted house is still very scary, myself.

Speaker 3 (52:57):
Included in certain ones.

Speaker 1 (52:59):
The best one make you really actually scared. And like
I said, if you can't get out of your house
and go drive, driving in a car is scarier than
going to a haunted house. In reality, you're not gonna
die in a haunted house unless you go to the
ones in Kansas City where you eat shit down the
stairs because they.

Speaker 3 (53:15):
Don't fucking clean the place.

Speaker 1 (53:17):
But I always say that to my mom, Like I
always joke with my mom. I was like, you want
to go to a haunted house with us? She's like no,
And I was like, you get in a car and
drive every day. That's way scarier than like walking through
a contained environment with a bunch of people that are
being paid to not touch you because if they do,
they lose their jobs. Like, it's way scarier than you know,
who knows who driving on the fucking highway at eighty

(53:39):
miles an hour, and if they decide to go ape shit,
the rest of the world is gonna have to pay
for it.

Speaker 3 (53:44):
So yeah, I wish fulfillment.

Speaker 2 (53:48):
Good call. Yeah, that's a That's a good conversation to
have about this topic for sure. And now question four.
I feel like we've already mentioned a couple of things
that we're gonna talk about again here, But what do
you think I think is a good cinematic bridge to
the subject of haunted attraction films or haunt attraction films, Because,
as we mentioned earlier, this is like a niche of

(54:09):
a niche topic. So, uh yeah, what do you think?

Speaker 1 (54:14):
So I might be stealing your answer here, I don't know,
but I think if you're a fan of Saw in general,
you might find some value in these kinds of movies.

Speaker 3 (54:27):
Some of the Saw movies, especially that second one.

Speaker 1 (54:31):
Is kind of its own haunted thing, like it like
it's in a house and there's rooms and each room
has Like Saw is kind of predicated on the idea
of one room to another things taking place that have
to either happen or not happen, depending on which movie
you're in. Haunted attraction movies are kind of the same
in a lot of ways, like they go from room

(54:52):
to room, or they go from scenario to scenario, but
those scenarios can kind of see them coming from a
mile away. I feel like, if you like Saw, but
also if you just like movies about haunted places, because
a lot of the best ones of these are also
bottle movies. Like Haunt is a bottle movie. They go
to one place, they're there the whole time for the

(55:12):
most part, up until the end of the movie, which
I chuckled at mightily. But I mean, like something like
Hell House LLC. Or The House of that October Bill,
Like they're kind of just taking place within one space
for the most part, So you know, bot you know,
a haunted house movie is kind of the same thing.
And most of the time they don't leave or can't

(55:32):
leave or unable to leave or what have you. So
those are my kind of easy obvious answers. But again,
like you said, this is so down three levels, you know,
I'm not sure how obvious. I'm not sure how not
obvious we had to get here.

Speaker 2 (55:49):
I agree. I think that we are, you know, kind
of dancing around some topics here because I think some
of these other related topics are probably going to be
future episodes at some point. So we mentioned like carnival
films earlier. If you like episodes surrounding the circus, surrounding carnivals,
surrounding theme parks, those fit very well with these. But

(56:12):
I gotta be honest, a lot of these they have
like an air of mystery. They have an air of
am I going to be able to escape from here?
At some point? Because you don't know for the person
in the film, there starts to be this blurred line
of am I going to survive? And so I really
like your answer here, except instead of saw, I'll expand

(56:33):
it to any of those like trap type films, whether
it be the Saft franchise or the Cube franchise or
the Escape Room franchise, which you could argue, you know,
some lists have Escape Room listed as a haunt attraction
type film. There are a lot of those types of
movies that also became popular around. Like I hate to
use this term because I don't really agree with that,

(56:55):
but like the torture porn era, the a lot of
those were let's bring people into a room and torture them,
and they think that they have a chance to survive,
and those for a lot of people, they work really well.
And I'm one of those people. I like the mystery aspect.
I like puzzles, so solving like an escape room horror
movie that sounds like just put it into my veins.

(57:16):
It's like, you made me a movie that sounds perfect.
Escape room is far from perfect, but the idea of
this type of film sounds like exactly what I want.

Speaker 1 (57:25):
We need to go to Vegas to the saw escape
room then, because I'm pretty sure that those things in
Vegas aren't actually haunted houses. There are escape rooms, at
least the things that are there now, which is interesting
because for me, escape rooms are just like one half
of the haunted house. It's like, oh, you don't want
to be scared, right, Like, okay, I get it, So

(57:48):
what is.

Speaker 3 (57:48):
The other part?

Speaker 1 (57:49):
Well, if there's nothing to be scared by, it's the
fact that you can't get out, right, So they have
to introduce some other threat. And if it's not an
exterior threat of people jump out at you, than the
threat is you can't leave.

Speaker 3 (58:02):
So in my mind, like.

Speaker 1 (58:04):
Escape rooms are just like less scary haunted houses, Like
it's just it's a haunted house. You agree to be
locked in, Like, I agree to be locked in here
for an hour, and if I can find my way out, cool,
If not, I don't know, cool, I guess again, Like
you know in the movie, you know, if you don't escape,

(58:24):
you die. In real life, they're not going to shoot
you in the head and throw you out back in
the dumpster. That they might at least not any escape rooms.
I've been to threat in that, but who knows, you.

Speaker 2 (58:33):
Know, it's funny. Uh well, first of all, escape rooms
are kind of like in that same trend with these
haunted attractions. They've not been around for that long where
it's something that they were super popular. I'm sure there
was some for a while, But the big thing is
I had gone to like two before a lot of
my friend groups, and so I had seen a couple
of examples of what they could do. And somebody said,

(58:53):
that sounds awful. That just you getting locked into a room.
Why do you like that? I was like, well, it's
it sounds like a haunted house, except for instead of
a ghost, it's manned by Sherlock Holmes.

Speaker 1 (59:02):
Like that sounds perfect, right, Yeah, I'm with you. You're the
first person I've met that actively likes escape rooms, which
seems like a missed opportunity.

Speaker 3 (59:12):
We should have gone and done an escape room.

Speaker 2 (59:13):
Apparently we just did one in Iowa when we were there.

Speaker 3 (59:16):
I know, I saw I we did not do well,
damn well.

Speaker 1 (59:24):
But like I said, I mean, escape rooms are now part,
you know, part and parcel with haunted houses, because, like
I mentioned, the thing in Vegas is a saw escape room.

Speaker 3 (59:33):
It's not even a haunted house. I don't think like which.

Speaker 1 (59:35):
Again, like in my mind it makes sense like you're
kind of bridging the gap here and saw really is.

Speaker 3 (59:43):
Just escape rooms anyways.

Speaker 1 (59:44):
Like that, the concept alone lends itself to being you know,
kind of serialized in a way and turned into something
physical because it's like, oh, it's already kind of an
escape room. So you know, nobody's gonna again agree to
have a bear trap put.

Speaker 3 (01:00:00):
On their head.

Speaker 1 (01:00:01):
But well not most people. There are probably some people
that'd be like, yeah, I've inject that shit into my veins. Dog,
this makes me just want to go to a haunted house.
That's all this is done. Like, I'm just like, why
is it in October?

Speaker 3 (01:00:15):
Yeah? Exactly?

Speaker 1 (01:00:16):
Why is it April why is it not October like
tenth that sounds like a good day, Like not the
first couple of days of the month, because here they're
never very cold, but like ten to fifteen days in
we're talking prime fall. Whether everybody's already the normies are
already exhausted by horror movies, but the rest of us
are just settling into another twenty one days of this bullshit. Yeah,

(01:00:41):
I wish it was October. Let's just pretend it's October
right now the end.

Speaker 2 (01:00:47):
What's funny is it'll probably be October when this gets released.

Speaker 3 (01:00:49):
It's you're hearing this now, Yeah, magic.

Speaker 1 (01:00:56):
Man.

Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
Yeah. I love The Fall. And one of the reasons
is because it's stuff like this. It really helps get
you in the mood for the spooky times. It helps
you know, really ring in the changing of everything, and
follows perfect for stuff like this. I strongly recommend people
check out at least one of these if you've never
seen them. The films are super fun, can be very

(01:01:18):
well made, but also if you dive into some of
the lesser known titles, keep in mind to go in
there with some grace. They're not all perfect, they're not
all super well made. They're not. You know, I don't
think any of these have big name actors. These are
mostly just small teams coming together to make a fun movie,
and I think that you'll find something to enjoy in

(01:01:40):
every single one.

Speaker 1 (01:01:42):
And hey, if you watch hell House three and then
go to Target, you may see the actor who plays
one of the main characters in that movie as just
a clothing model at Target, which is a real thing.
The guy who plays Russell Winn I think is his name,
is just casually a men's clothing mode at Target on
a lot of their advertisements. So that's a weird, random thing.

(01:02:05):
But yeah, to your point, like haunted houses are just
that's just that's just one of the few things we
get to do in October. If we're fans of that
world that we that helps us kind of engage with
it in a different way than just sitting down to
watch a movie.

Speaker 2 (01:02:22):
Good call, very good call. I think that brings us
to the end here, sir. Let's uh, let's tell the
people where they can find you.

Speaker 1 (01:02:33):
Weirdingwaymedia dot com is where you can find everything but
one thing.

Speaker 3 (01:02:37):
I work on.

Speaker 1 (01:02:38):
Everything else that is not that one thing can be
found at weirding Way Media, The Culture Cast Midnight Viewing,
Tales of Nothing because that's not the name of a
show anymore. Oh God, why am I blanking here? It's
like I haven't been doing this for ten years. The
Projection Booth Midnight Viewing, Dark Destinations, Twisted and Uncorked, eighty

(01:03:02):
TV Ladies. These are all shows that you should be
listening to as opposed to listening to me talk about them.
They can all be found at weirding Way Media, aside
from ranking on Bond, which can be found on Patreon
at either the Projection Booth or the Culture Cast at
the ten dollars level. What about you, Ryan Veral, What
can people find what someone's favorite productions is up to?

Speaker 2 (01:03:21):
Right now? Well, I try to talk about something different
in every single episode, So today I really want to
highlight our magazine. We have a magazine that we put
out called The Physical Media Advocate. You can find it
in multiple online retailers, including Amazon. Just go over there
and search up the Physical Media Advocate. Otherwise, there are
some retail stores in person that you can purchase from.

(01:03:43):
You can purchase it directly for me if you're after it.
All of these issues have some monthly ongoing columns. We've
got letters to the editors that are humorous and genuinely meaningful.
Sometimes we've got in depth articles on films, in depth
articles on directors and actors, on genres, on nostalgia, for
DVD menus. It is a very physical media focused magazine,

(01:04:07):
as you could expect by that name, but it really
is just a love letter to all of cinema and
it has some of the most compelling names working in
the industry in my opinion writing for it. So check
it out if you are so inclined. We've got a
digital version or a print version. We'd love to have
you check it out every time it comes out. But
other than that, thank you for listening to this episode

(01:04:30):
on Haunt Attractions. We hope you check out the next
episode and that you continue to travel down some of
those spooky side roads that you might discover some films
that you may never have seen otherwise.

Speaker 1 (01:05:01):
Only