September 15, 2024 • 55 mins
Ready 2 Retro is thrilled to have Josh from@hauntingseason join us for Week 2 of #spookyseptember! In this conversation, you'll hear Josh talk about his haunting thrift adventures, his favorite horror movies and all things retro!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:19):
Hey, everybody, welcome to episode one ninety five of the
Ready to Retro podcast. It is week two of Spooky September.
The day that we are recording this. It's one hundred
and six hundred and eight in LA depending on where
you are. But the day just got even hotter because
we have a special guest with us. We have Josh
(00:41):
from the Haunting season. You guys know him on TikTok
and so much more. But Josh, thank you so much
for being on Ready to Retro.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Hey, yeah, I'm glad for a couple more minutes in
the air conditioning before I bike home for forty five minutes.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
So that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Yeah, yeah, we got a I got an e bike
instead of a second car, and it's been great until
this week.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
That's crazy. Yeah. And you're gonna be biking like the
hottest part of the day.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Oh yeah, oh yeah. And because the traffic is so dangerous,
I go all the way up, like through Griffith Park
and like the long way home, So it's it's not
gonna be great.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Well, at least you don't have to go to the
gym anytime soon because you'll probably lose ten pounds.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Yeah yeah, I hope the audience is ready, because this
is gonna be I think a five hour podcast until
the sun goes down.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
So well, awesome for those who don't know you, Josh,
can you tell our listeners and those viewing just who
you are and what brings you here?
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Too?
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Ready to retro?
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Yeah, well, I grew up in the eighties and nineties,
so that's retro. I got started in like content creation.
We didn't call it back, you know, back then, content creation.
But I got into filmmaking and stuff when I was
in high school and pursued it for a while after college.
(02:02):
And then buddy of mine and I realized that there
wasn't really much going on in the horror space on YouTube,
and so in twenty thirteen I started a web series
called Haunting Season, where I started out telling my own
original I started out telling my own stories about being
a kid and you know, going to haunted places. But
(02:23):
I only had a couple of those, so I started
writing my own stories. I did it every week for
two years, and then got super burned out and put
the project aside and went to become a professional filmmaker.
And then like right before the pandemic, we were the
company I work with. We were trying to come up
with ideas for, like, how do we get back into
the entertainment space because everything I do for work is
(02:44):
largely in rare disease advocacy documentary space. And so I
pitched Haunting Season coming Back as a podcast, and we
did that for a little bit where I kind of
every fourth episode was a new story, and then you know,
there were interviews and stuff and that was really fun.
And then TikTok took off and I was lucky enough
(03:06):
to be in the early wave of that when things
were like really blowing up for just about everybody. Yeah,
I got a pretty big following that I still can't
really believe. And so I've just been kind of doing
that for a while. But now I'm kind of shifting
back towards longer form storytelling and that's that's pretty much
who I am.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
That's awesome. Thank you for sharing your story with us.
Got to ask you, like, what is it about horror
that entices you, that gets you excited? You could have
done a YouTube video on anything, but why horror.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Yeah, my mom asked me this all the time. There's
something about genre filmmaking that I think expresses the human
experience in such a unique way that no other format
really does at the extreme. And I've always been kind
(04:00):
of an extreme person. I'm not a risk taker. I'm
not someone who like, you know, does any sort of
Red Bull sponsored sport or anything. But I do like
the idea of danger. I do like the idea of stress,
and like, even from being a little kid, I used
to see how long I could stand, like with the
(04:22):
basement door open in my back to the darkness, you
know that that sort of thing that has always been
fun to me. And I feel like growing up in
the church, I always kind of believed in ghosts and
spooky stuff, and my dad was kind of into playing
with that a little bit, not not playing with ghosts,
but like playing with the idea that the you know,
(04:43):
the spiritual world was out there. Yeah. I don't know.
I mean it's funny because science fiction was my first
love and that kind of brought me to horror. That
was like my gateway. But I didn't feel like I
was really smart enough to write science fiction, so horror
it seemed like a good second spot.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Yeah, there's something about horror where the imagination there's really
no limits, right, I mean, we're talking about vampires and werewolves,
and you don't need a lot of Like I don't know.
I guess that science fiction is like or you need
a base for that. It needs to be real. With horror,
anything goes. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Yeah, it's not just the future, but it could be
the past, it could be the present, it could be
literally there's zero limitations, just as messed up as you
can make it. But I also just love that the
symbolism of the stories, like I saw, okay, so a
little bit of a journey here. I saw just randomly
(05:43):
was looking for anthology films around Halloween a couple of
years ago and discovered All Hallows Eve, which has Terrifier
the clown or Art the clown from Terrifyer in it.
That was like his origin and then I was like, ooh,
I want more of this clown. So I watched Terrifier
and was mortified and thought, like, what's the point? I
can't figure it out like that. It just seems like
(06:03):
a bunch of brutality against women and it really kind
of bothered me, and so I didn't go see Terrifier too,
which I'm now a huge fan of. I actually have
a VHS of it that I just paid way too
much money for because I like, I need it. I
need it, and watching it, I feel like I've found
all the answers to like why art exists, what he represents,
(06:26):
how it's linked to the main character and all of
that stuff. And I'm when I watch horror, that's what
I'm hungry for, is like deep, deep meaning that is
so hidden behind gore and ridiculousness and creepy looking monsters
that it's hard to dig out, but you can just
kind of pick at it until you figure it out.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Yeah, I mean, like for me, the reason why I
love horror is, like you said, there's that layer underneath
it all right. Like one of my favorite movies, horror movies,
is the Thing, and the thing is about isolation and
are you or as humans, are we supposed to be isolated?
Are we? Are we supposed to be by ourselves? Are
(07:06):
we supposed to be at each other's throats? You know?
And it's this whole idea of like the scary thing
is being alone and everybody's you know, coming at you.
So I loved kind of the unpacking things like that.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Yeah, and also like what it is to take to
remove like a small group of people from society completely, right,
because you find this when you get a roommate, even
you know, you don't pick your best friend as your
roommate because by the end of it, you don't have
a best friend anymore.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Right, Yeah, No, it's true, and I would I would
probably think none of those guys in it, and there
were probably none of them were best friends. But yeah,
So going back to childhood, and as this is a
nostalgic podcast, do you have any like fond memories of
the spooky season, Halloween, anything like that, things that come
(07:57):
to your mind when I say that.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Yeah, I always loved dressing up, and you know, it
was like eighties and nineties, so our parents were making
our costumes and I like to get really involved in that.
Like one of my favorite photos from when I was
a kid was me dressed up as Dick Tracy. I
had a classic mullet haircut. I had this like black
(08:19):
denim vest and the red tie and I remember I
would like throw it over my shoulder when I ran,
because in the comics it would be like over his shoulder. Yeah,
And so like I would always it was never I
never wanted to be scary. Things like you know, one
Euro's Johnny Depp from Pirates of the Caribbean and one
euro is the clown, the Joker from the Dark Night.
(08:43):
You know, it was just like characters that like spoke
to me. I would want to just like have an
opportunity to have a little part of that, almost like cosplay.
But I didn't know what that was in like high
school and college. And I think that had always been
that way for me, like as a kid, because I
know I was like Robin Hood the year that I
was super into that Disney Robin Hood movie. Okay, those
are the ones I can remember.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
It's funny because Robin Hood, what's as similar costume as
I was Peter Pan for two years in a row.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Oh yeah, same result, yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Oh yeah yeah, same same tights too. That's awesome. Do
you have a favorite costume from from back in the day?
Speaker 2 (09:21):
No, I mean, like those are all the ones I
can like vividly remember. I don't have a visual memory,
so it's hard for me without like seeing photos for sure.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
For sure, is there a costume you still want to
pull off or one that you're like dying to do
if there was like no money that was holding you back?
Speaker 2 (09:40):
It's hard because I think about this all the time
as as a bearded, bald person. There's not a whole
lot of like horror icons that I could be, And
I don't know, I don't think about it too often
because I feel like it bums me out. But if
I had zero limitations, I don't know, it'd be really
(10:00):
fun to do something from the re Animator or gosh,
I don't know, hard question, yeah, or actually no limitations.
I'd like to do like some big, crazy, crazy monster
like with practicals and everything.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
That'd be awesome, Like some kind of xenomorph that you
just be on stilts or something.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Yeah, were like one of the blubbery flesh monsters from
like the Void, you know, just like yeah, yeah, just
like flesh hanging everywhere. And yeah, well I was sticking.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
You were saying that there isn't a lot of you know,
bald guys with beards and horror. It sounds like you
gotta make that movie man.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, well it's a dream. Yeah for sure.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Was there any like particular candy that you loved growing up, Like,
you know, you're going out Sigar Tree, like I gotta
have these those candy in my bag.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Yeah, when I was younger, it was three Musketeer and
I don't know why. Like when I was really young,
I thought they it was filled with tuna fish. But
because like the texture of the chocolate on the outside. Yeah,
I don't know, you know, can I say that I
wasn't thinking flavors. But then as I got a little
bit older, I feel like, in like middle school, I
really latched onto peppermint patties, and if I ever see
(11:19):
like a full sized peppermint patty, I still get pretty excited.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
See those are the ones I put off to the side.
But my favorite is dots. And people say that about dots.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Are they the ones on the paper or are they
the they're like the thimble looking ones.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Yeah, those ones, the ones in the yellow boxes and
they get stuck in your teeth.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Oh yeah, they're kind of waxy.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Yeah, I love them. I don't know why. I've always
loved those, And recently they've been putting out like seasonal dots.
They have these ghost ones now where it's like a
mystery flavor during Christmas. They have little vanilla tips on it,
so it's kind of like snow. I don't know. I'm
a big dots. Guy, cool, everyone makes fun of me,
(12:02):
so yeah, I'm like.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Oh, make fun of you. I think it's great.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Thank you. I'm like, they're like, what's your favorite cannon?
Like dots? Like dots? What are you from? Born in
nineteen forty five?
Speaker 2 (12:13):
I was like, I think the ones on the paper
were buttons? Were they just told?
Speaker 1 (12:17):
I know? Yeah, I don't know what those were called.
But anytime you would try to many button, yeah, yeah,
you would eat them like off the paper, but half
of it would be actual paper and you're like scraping
them off with your teeth. And yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
I don't know how old you are, but I feel
like I feel like there was some terrible candy growing up.
Yeah up thirty four, thirty four Okay, I'm thirty nine,
so not too far off.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Yeah, yeah, what were some of the caddies you were
thinking of that were terrible wax lips?
Speaker 2 (12:49):
And then there were like the coke bottles that were
wax that you have to like bite the cap off
of and then drink the syrup in the inside.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Yeah, it was gross. It was like so messy too,
Like I would always like bite it and then squirts
everywhere and then do.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
You know what this just reminded me. One of the
greatest candies of all time that actually uh surpasses peppermint
patties for me are the little rootierd barrels. Those are
good that any There's one like Mexican restaurant up in
Lacanada somewhere that always has them, and every time we
eat there, I'm like.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Yes, because there's some that are like there's like your
basic ones, but there's like some that are like gourmet
roopier ones.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Yeah, and they like really look like a barrel. They
have like some took a took a very fine needle
and etched it all in.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Those are so good because you just suck on them
for a long time and it's like a treat for
minutes on it.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Yeah, yeah, minute minutes minutes on end.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
I don't like that restaurants don't give out like little
breath mints or little candies anymore. That used to be
so awesome as a kid.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
That would once in a while you can find the
really powdery mints. But then like in New Jersey, especially
at like the Italian joints, they would have some sort
of like gelatin in the middle, so there would be
like that powdery mint, but then it would be like
lemon on the inside.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
I don't know, that's not out here that much. I
don't know about that. Yeah, the pottery mint, and it
would just dissolve in your mouth. And you know, do
you have any spooky traditions that you do now or
have continued to do as a kid. Uh?
Speaker 2 (14:35):
You know. I feel like the pandemic interrupted any sort
of like growing get togethers that I used to do.
I used to really try to do some sort of
like move it on, get together with some people. Now
I have a digital movie club, so I might be
able to bring that back and in meaningful way. But
for the most part, my wife and I just watch
(14:56):
The Craft, Practical Magic, Hocus Poke, and Halloween three season
of The Witch. Those are on like the Foreshore Halloween
Week watch list, and then we sprinkle from there.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
There you go. So you're in the LA area. Do
you go to any of the haunts? Do you go
to Universal or Notts or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
I'm going to Halloween Hornites for the very first time
this year. Oh wow, Yeah, I'm excited. And I haven't
been to a haunt other than the pop up ones
that they have at Midsummer Scream every year. I haven't
been to an actual haunt in oh god, it was
probably twenty fourteen was the last time I did one,
(15:41):
and it was up in Minneapolis, and it was one
of the scariest ones like in the country, and it
was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Well, I hope that Universal's inviting you and you're not
just going there because it's a it's a bunch of
lines like I used to love going and I don't
want to you know, poopoo on it. But I hope
you have a I mean, it's fun, it's just I
have a little.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Bit of a hook up. It's directly through them. But
a friend of a friend happened to be able to
get me an extra ticket with like frontline passes, So
I'm excited.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Then you're you're good to go, yeah, which leaves.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Me open to maybe also squeezing in not Scary Farm
if I if I can manage.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
I would say, you know, in both of them, because
I would go to both of them all the time,
like from high school, college, all the way through Knots is.
The whole atmosphere of the whole park is just awesome.
Just the way that Universal is it's kind of split
up and there's certain parts where it's not dark, or
(16:45):
you're on the elevator going up and down from the
upper lot to the lower lot. But the thing that's
so awesome about Knots is like the entire park, you're
anywhere you go, you're pretty much in a scare zone
and it's free for all for any monsters to come out.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
And that makes sense too, because they're the they're the original,
right like they're they're the og.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Yeah. No, it's super fun. And then you mentioned mid Summer.
I was there as well this year. Yeah, it was,
it was fun, it was, it was great. I loved
what they did with the haunts this year, and it
seems like that area is getting bigger and bigger every year.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Yeah, that was a major upgrade this year. And I'm
sure that it didn't hurt that Lionsgate had their own
right spot. I bet that really helped amp things up.
That hunt and the Scooby Doo one were like phenomenal
this year.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Yeah. Yeah, the one at the end right, Scooby Doo.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Was directly across from lions Gate and it had all
the Scooby characters in it.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
I didn't do that one.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Oh my gosh, it was amazing. So when you go
in there was it was different the two times that
I did it, But the first time it was Daphne
and she was like, oh, you know, Scooby went this
way and you gotta find him or whatever. And so
then you go into this like swamp and there's like
a pirate and everything, and like something lurking underneath. They
did one of those like laser swamps, so you can't
(18:07):
see below the surface. And then you go around the
corner and it's a hallway of doors and the characters
are going in one door and out another like criss crossing,
just like in the cartoon. And then at the very end,
Velma ran out and scared us after we thought it
was over and was like, did you find him? Did
you find him?
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Oh? Wow, that's great.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
It was really really cool.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Oh man, I missed it. No, I went to the
Lionsgate one. I didn't went to the like toy story.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
One that was Oh I didn't make it into that one.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
That was that was that was solid. They're always so quick, right.
I was in line for one for forty five minutes
and I don't know what was going on, but the
line did not move. And just when you thought like
it didn't matter if you had a gold bat or regular,
it's just it wasn't moving. And I was waiting and waiting.
I was like, forget, Like when you're at Midsummer, you
(18:57):
got to maximize your time, So waiting forty five minutes,
it's like I got you.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Know, It's insane how quickly the time goes by at
a conference. I didn't make it to a single panel.
I was just really I was either on the exhibition
floor or in the Haunt Hall, and I was just
running into so many people because it was my third
year going and the first year one person recognized me,
and I thought like life can't get any better than this,
(19:23):
Like this is I've made it, you know. And then
and I also met up with Josh b Leveck, who's
another horror content creator and has become a really really
good friend, and we just walked the floor together like
the whole day that I was there. The next year,
I got media pass and was able to do a
whole lot more, But the panels that I went to,
(19:43):
I felt like I was like running from one to
another to try and cover them. And I was standing
in the back, and it just was a lot of
split time, and I feel like I didn't get to
do as much. And then this year, I just so
many people I knew were there that I felt like
I the majority of what I did for the entire
conference was stand in different parts of the of the
(20:05):
hall and just talk and it was amazing. It was
so much fun. So next year you and I got
to hang out in person.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Absolutely absolutely. But that's what a convention's all about, right, Like,
if you go to a work convention, you're going there
to network or to see you know, colleagues or people
used to work with or whatever. So I think, like
comic cons or in this case Midsummer being a horror convention,
it should be the same vibe. It should be about
the community. I know people want to like experience things,
(20:35):
but I had a similar experience. I just went to
a Power Rangers convention a few weeks ago. Oh yeah,
power Morphicon. It's the biggest Power Rangers convention in the world,
and it's in Pasadena, my hometown. So Saturday, I was
just you know, it's so crowded, but I was just
catching up with some people that I've met through the community.
(20:57):
And just you know, other content creator or whatever. So yeah,
I feel like convention should be about that should be
about celebrating the communities that you're part of and that
you love one hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
That's been the most rewarding part of doing all of
this because you get burnt out on creating the content.
I'm sure there are months where you're like, I gotta
make a podcast episode and I'd rather die, you know,
because it is work. It is a lot of work,
and it's very singular work. It's very isolated, and to
be able to connect with those people, which is why
(21:33):
I've been pushing my movie. I call it my movie Club.
It's really just a discord of like minded people that
hang out. But why I've been pushing that so hard
is because I find more joy in the like fifty
people that are in there than I do with like
the mixed comments of people being like that movie was
mid or like that movie sogged balls. You know, like
(21:54):
nobody cares if you didn't like a movie. But if
you can connect on a human level and like talk
about things maybe you did like, or change the subject
and be just like a normal conversing human, that is
so much better. So much more fun.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Absolutely, I mean a few years ago, and I'll be
a little open here on the podcast, haven't really mentioned this,
but there was like a you know, at first, you know,
you have aspirations of what this could be. And at
a certain point where I was like, you know what,
based off of my life, my schedule, you know, the
rhythms of my life. I don't think this is going
(22:30):
to go full time or you know, it's not going
to be really lucrative, and that's okay, but what is
going to fill me up is the connections I have,
the friends that I mean, and like there's people now
that I've met podcasting and there's some of my closest friends.
And it's crazy, Like the job I'm in now was
(22:50):
because of a podcaster and her husband's like, hey, if
you need a job, just just let them know. And
I needed a job and you know, but it's just
it's so cool like podcasting, you know what you're doing
on TikTok. That's what it should be about. It should
be about the community first, not just trying to make
(23:11):
a quick book. At least that's that's my two cents
on it.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Yeah, because I found myself. I love my career, and
I would never leave it for content creation. I just
don't have It's just not interesting to me, Whereas like
the work that I actually do in my life and
my work life is making a difference in the world,
you know, and not that like making people happy isn't
but like, you know, I have a larger purpose through that.
(23:35):
So I was never looking at it as like a
means to an end, which I think puts me in
a different boat, because I think a lot of people
are on social media nowadays, especially with TikTok being what
it is, with the idea of I can get out,
this is my ticket out, and it happens for some people,
it's not realistic for others, and it's really hard to
(23:55):
draw that line. And I found myself getting to a
point where I was putting so much effort into the
extracurricular stuff, the TikTok, the Instagram posts, the podcast, the YouTube.
I had to ask myself, like, if I dropped all
of it and all I did with my life was
go to work and then go home and relax and
(24:17):
hang out with my wife, if it would be enough.
And as soon as I realized like, yeah, then it
took all the weight off of everything else, and I
was able to just be like, Okay, so I haven't
posted in two days whatever, Whereas like I used to
kind of start to have panic attacks about that because
I'd be like, oh, I got to keep the momentum.
I'm not going to grow, I'm not gonna be it's
(24:39):
it's it's can so easily become just such a huge
mental stressor in people's lives. And so many of the
people of the content creators that I talked to we
get together and you know, like everybody likes to vent
and everybody likes to bitch and moan, but like the
people who are lost in it, it's like it's it's
(25:01):
not worth it. M m yeah, yeah, totally not to
get heavy.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
No, this is cool. I mean, this is this is
just where the conversation is going. It just makes me think,
I saw d D yesterday. Have you seen that movie yet?
Speaker 2 (25:15):
No? I really want to because I skateboarded when I
was a kid, and so anytime any story like that
comes out, I'm like huge on it.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Yeah. So, I mean put the nostalgia aside, which they
do it really well, and it's not a gimmick. It's
just really the kind of the sandbox they create. It's
just like the early YouTube days. And I remember that
it was like vlogs, right, like Lonely Girl and you know,
all this stuff, and it was that's how YouTube started.
And now you know, it is what it is, and
(25:45):
you got studios involved, and you know, movies, studios and
all this stuff, but just simplifying. And I think the
same thing with TikTok. You know, I think it's going
through some growing pains a little bit, and the algorithm
kind of changed. And I'm sure you can speak more
to that, but I just feel like that platform has
(26:06):
changed a lot, and because there is so much money
involved that I don't know, it just seems like the
charm a little bit has kind of faded.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Well, that's the thing, like, at the end of the day,
social media platforms are businesses that are looking to make
as much money as possible, and the strategy that every
single one of them has used in the past is
let's give away a bunch of free shit. Let's get
people really really amped up. And then once we have
all the users making all this amazing stuff for free
(26:38):
for us and our platform is worldwide recognizable, that's when
we can start to figure out how to charge money
for it, and so it's a you know, you start
your company with an investment and you use all of
that investment until you hit rock bottom, but that's when
you start charging out the ass and then you become
this like big mega, you know, billionaire corporation. And I
(26:59):
think there was this real they did something magical with
the algorithm when it first came out, where anybody could
be discovered, and it didn't ever feel like that on Instagram,
it didn't ever feel like that on maybe early YouTube days.
But it was like anybody could be discovered by accident,
not like anybody could be discovered on purpose because of
(27:20):
this amazing algorithm, right, And so there was this like
mysticism around it that it was like the great wild
frontier of the Internet that was going to change everything.
And then now where we're at, it's just like there's nothing.
I don't know, it's such a it can be such
a dark place and it can be such a wholesome
(27:41):
and wonderful place too. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
No, And that's where I like watching your tiktoks is
you know, this is the first time that we're kind
of interacting like this, even it was a cold ask,
you know, but I've been following your tiktoks for a
while and you just seem like genuine and just having
this interact with you for the last thirty minutes, I'm like,
you know, the person that you are on TikTok is
(28:06):
kind of the same person I'm talking to right now.
So that's actually it's cool to see It's neat to
see me in.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Yeah, thanks. Yeah, I mean, I'm a jelly guy, and
you know, obviously, like everybody's online persona is only a
portion of who they are. Like, I like things that
aren't just horror movies. I might have a big collection
and be a little bit of a nerd about it,
but you know, I like watching rom coms, you know,
I like going out into nature, and I feel like
(28:34):
those things. And I also I get sad, you know,
like a real human being, and I feel like I
try to put as much of that out on the
Internet as I feel comfortable with. But there's every single
person you see online, it is only just a small
fraction of who they are for sure.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Yeah, and I love you know, your thrift store adventures. Yeah,
and those are fun. What makes you want to just
share that with the world, you know, because it's a
little different from the format that you normally do. But yeah,
tell us about your thrift store adventures.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Yeah, so okay. So when I started TikTok, I was
because I'm in filmmaking. I was looking at it from
a business perspective, and I was doing a wide range
of things that I thought would be interesting, and the
ones that performed the best is how I narrowed it
down to mostly doing like movie reviews. And for the
(29:32):
first like two years, maybe even close to three, I
really was watching like fifteen horror movies a month and
reviewing them and shooting in batches of like twenty videos
and then editing them all together. And it was like
it was so much work, and I was doing it
with like a nicer camera, and I was doing it
in premiere instead of like on my phone. And part
(29:55):
of the burnout that happened from that, and part of
that conversation I was talking about earlier, where I was
I was like, if I just dropped everything and left,
would I like emotionally be okay with it? Could I
just be a normal human who doesn't make content? I
think when I came to that realization and was okay
with it. Then I started to think of like, well, okay,
(30:17):
so what do I want to do? Because this whole
time I've been doing what I think the Internet wants
me to do. So what do I want to do?
And my wife and I are avid thrifters. Our entire
home is thrifted, with the exception of a few like
staple pieces. Yeah, I mean, like you think this is busy,
There's not a single inch of our house that isn't
covered in some wall hanging or you know, piece of art.
(30:41):
And our clothing for the most part, is all thrifted.
It's just something we love because we can go out
and we can fill the car for like one hundred
and fifty bucks and it feels like you went shopping
all day long because you did. Yeah, you don't spend
like a ton of money, and then you don't feel
bad when you cycle things out and redonate things and
replace them in your home. Soeng and we just love stuff.
(31:04):
My wife calls it clutter core. It's just like clutter everywhere,
but it's with a purpose and it's designed. So yeah,
since this is like a hobby that we love and
because of the way, you know, like there are more
options for women than there are for men when it
comes to clothing traditionally, and so I have less to
(31:27):
do in a thrift store. Also, I don't think men
donate as much as women do. And so I'll go
through a thrift store in like fifteen to thirty minutes,
and my wife will sometimes need an hour because there's
like an amazing section. And so I've figured out if
I just am making a video about going in there,
(31:48):
well then I can go sit in the air conditioning
in the car and edit the video and I have
something to do instead of like moping around and following
her and being hungry for like the next hit of
going to another store.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Yeah, oh that's funny. No, you mentioned, like you know
there's less clothes for men. It's because men will wear
out their t shirts until they throw it away. It's
not even donatable, you know, like you have like just
have holes and like you know, your shoes have holes
and stuff, like you know, nobody wants this, but.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
You know, yeah, shoes for sure. Like my wife has
been like just donate those shoes, and I'm like, I
would not give these to an unhoused person, like they
are my toes hang out the bottom.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Exactly, so that's that's right there. I think it's pretty
accurate too. It's just men kind of just wear out
their clothes, you know.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
This is why some of the greatest clothing finds that
I've found in my thrifting have been like women's jackets
that fit me really well. Nice. Yeah, I have this
leopard print one. My wife actually found it and bought
it for herself, but I stole it because it fits
perfectly and it drops right at my beltline, and I
wear it to like most of the premieres I go
to that aren't in the summer, and every single time
(33:02):
people are like, the jacket's amazing.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
I'm like, I know, Yeah, I have this sick quicksilver
neon like windbreaker kind of jacket with like it's it's
got a hood, it's got a pockets. It's from like
nineteen ninety two, ninety three, and I remember getting that
in college and it was awesome. Like thrifting before iPhones
(33:26):
and before smartphones were so awesome because now it's so
easy to oh, what's this and you just do a
QR code scan and yeah, oh this is worth you know,
eighty bucks on eBay all right, Well, we're gonna put
it for like fifty bucks.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
That's why we do a lot of our thrifting outside
of LA. Like, anytime we take a trip and it's
a personal trip, we go southwest so that we can
have extra bags for free, and we nest our luggage
on the way there with like empty suitcases, so then
when we get there, we just fill them up and
then we fly home.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
That's funny. My wife and I have done that too.
I'll normally be looking for records, right and just yeah,
so they're a lot cheaper outside of LA and any
kind of like thrift stores out I'm always looking. It
was historically I was always looking for retro video games.
That's a lot harder to find now, but yeah, now
(34:22):
it's just been records and sometimes just books, certain books.
I'm looking for nostalgia books or anything like that. So yeah, yeah, cool,
Well maybe one day we can go thrifting. I know
a couple of good spots that are still you know,
hidden gems in the LA area.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
All Right, I love we can love dueling who has
the best thrift store?
Speaker 1 (34:44):
That sounds like a challenge. Here's ten bucks, Yeah, the
best outfit? Yeah, all right, We're gonna take a quick
break and when we come back, we're gonna hear more
from Josh and we're gonna ask him some of his
favorite horror movies. So don't go in all right, we
(35:06):
are back here on ready to retro. We are with
Josh from the Haunting season. So, Josh, I know this
answer because I saw in one of the videos you mentioned,
But can you tell our listeners what is the scariest
movie you've ever seen?
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Okay, I was trying to think of this because I
saw your questions in the Zoom Invite. There's a couple now,
and they're all kind of on the same level for me,
most recently, both from the same director when Evil Lyrics
and Terrified they're Argentina in movies, and both of them
(35:43):
just absolutely to my core, like scared the living daylights
out of me. And I haven't felt that with I
felt stressed, I've felt you know, anxious from a movie,
but I haven't felt like scared in a really long time,
and those did it for me.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Terrified definitely does it.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Yeah, it just like.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
It.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Oh, it just gets under your skin and it's They're
amazing movies to watch, and like Pitch black in an
empty house alone, which is like, how I kind of
chase that like childhood fear that you used to feel
when you were first discovering horror movies. Oh yeah, I
either do that at home or when I get to
a hotel room before I'm familiar with like the layout,
(36:27):
on the first night, I'll close the blinds and turn
all the lights off and watch something that I think
will scare the pants off me. So those two, and
then there's a tie like documentary styled found footage movie
called The Medium that I watched like a year or
two ago that still freaks me out when I think
about it, and like I was scared walking around my
(36:47):
house after I watched it. And then Evil Dead twenty
thirteen was like the movie theater scary one for me
that like I went and saw that alone and I
sat with my feet up on the seat like holding
my legs.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
And then the last one, so what I was thinking of,
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah sorry.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
And then the last one is from my childhood and
for some reason, it's still scares of live in daylights
out of me. And you can make fun of me,
but you eat dots. It's m night Shyamalan signs.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Dude, yes, I love that movie.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
It's a perfect film. But my brother and I when
we would put it on, we would like wait for
my parents to both go out, and then we would
put it on at night. And the menu that just
had the sounds coming through on the DVD menu with
the baby monitor, Like, I almost couldn't play the movie.
I was so scared.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
I recently saw maybe not recently, this was a couple
of months ago, but I saw somebody posts the iconic
scene where it's the revealed the alien and the aliens
looking at the camera and you know, it's what is
it like Mexico or something with all the all the
kids and.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
Oh yeah, yeah those children.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
Yeah yeah. And then but that scene and then the
caption was scariest scene ever. And then everyone in the comments,
not everyone, a lot of people are like, oh, how
could you say this is the scariest thing. But to
I responded was you can't just take a scene outside
(38:23):
of the context. The entire movie was building to that
one scene. Therefore, that scene was like so moving and
it and it gripped you, like it was scary. It
was startling because the entire movie was building to that
one reveal, and I think that's when a horror movie
does it really well. It's not just that a scary scene,
(38:45):
it's how is it building to that scene?
Speaker 2 (38:49):
Yeah, and they didn't over show it in that moment either.
It was that bigfoot footage, you know, where it's blurry
and the frames of the news camera are kind of
lending together when it's paused, and it's just like enough
to get under your skin.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
Yeah. Oh that's good. Well, if we ever do a
review on that movie, I know who to call. There's
a lot of ac I want DIBs on that.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
I know all the behind the scenes stories. Yeah sold.
I mean they're just on the DVD, but I know them.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
Yeah. So the uh found footage. One that got me
was paranorl activity the first one.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Oh yeah in the theater that was unreal.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
Oh yeah, similar to you. I also grew up in
the church, so you know, the whole demon possession and
things like that. But wild enough. About three weeks ago,
I was in San Diego. My wife was at a conference,
or were a conference, and I was visiting her for
a day and I was like, you know what, I
got some alone time in San Diego I'm gonna hit
(39:55):
up Sombrero, the Mexican place that Blink one eight two
sings about and near there is also the Paranormal Activity House,
and yeah, so you know it's it's just in a suburb.
It's just like in this neighborhood. They're all track houses,
so you know, I want to be respectful. There's it's
just a regular neighborhood. But I got the chills because
(40:16):
the entire movie was filmed there, not just like the exterior,
the interior too. So I was out there, you know,
just taking a picture and doing a quick video. But
I you know that that movie scared the hell out
of me.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
Du Yeah, yeah. I recently put it on because sometimes
I'll put on movies while I'm at work, just have
them on on the side because like, oh I've seen it.
It'll be like I'll peek over every once in a while.
And it started to feel like it wasn't going to
hold up, and so I just like turned it off
and I was like, no, the next time I watched this,
(40:51):
it's going to be in the dark with the lights out,
Like I can't. I can't daylight this movie right now.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
I remember see the third one and It was just me,
my roommate and another one of our buddies. And I
remember walking into this small theater in Azusa and my
roomy just goes, no, I don't like this. No, like
you just thought like that, us being by ourselves, because
we watched the whole movie. It was just us like
that somehow the demon was gonna like come out of
(41:22):
the screen and screen and get us.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
So yeah, well, and they had rumors too when that
movie came out, like you know, crazy things like you know,
people were having miscarriages because they got so scared in
the theater and like someone died of a heart attack, and.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
Yeah, dude, that's serious. I mean they they were just
pomping them out right after one after another, like I
don't even know where away. I know it went to four.
I don't know what's a five, but uh, the first
the first two got me.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
There were like offshoots, so I know the most recent
one was like Kindred Spirit or something like that, and
you know, I don't know, Yeah I watched the first three,
maybe the first four, but yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:06):
Okay, I know I watched the first four.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
Oh the fourth one had the Xbox Connect.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
Yeah, yeah, it is that one. Yeah. Yeah, So twenty
twenty four, there's been a lot of horror movies, and
there's been a lot of good ones as of right now.
What are some of the ones that you've really enjoyed
watching this year so far?
Speaker 2 (42:26):
Yeah, I've missed quite a few, but I was doing
pretty good at the beginning of the year. I travel
a lot for work, so when I miss I miss
like chunks, but for me for fun. And the most
recent one, Alien Romulus, I just loved it was like
a Greatest Hits album of alien moments. And I just
love Fetti Alvarez. I think he's brilliant. And I am
(42:50):
never bothered by a fan fiction film, which is really
what these are, right. It's not Ridley Scott making a
sequel to his first. It's fan fiction because it's just
like directors who are like, yeah, cool, I'll do it
so that that stuff never bothers me. For originality, I
think I have to say Cuckoo.
Speaker 1 (43:10):
I haven't seen that one yet.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
I've really loved it. I really loved it because it
was unexpected throughout it didn't remind me of anything. It
didn't like I have no way of explaining it to
people without ruining it, and I love movies like that. Yeah,
and it just like it has some great scares. I
had some really great acting. I mean, I just also
(43:34):
really loved Maxine and immaculate and the first omen those
are three like big ones for me this year.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
What were your thoughts on long Links? Did you see
that yet?
Speaker 2 (43:44):
Yeah? I did. I'm really eager to see it again.
So I saw it and I had ridden the hype
up and then I had ridden the anti hype down,
so I felt like I was in a good place
to see it. I couldn't on first watch. I couldn't
let go of the fact that it was Nick Cage.
Speaker 1 (44:04):
Me too, me too.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
And so part of me kept thinking, like, oh man,
if this was an unknown actor but doing the same performance,
would this scare me? You know, like, would I be horrified.
I love the style of the movie, I love the storytelling.
I love how like cryptic it is. And I watched
a like a twenty minute video of someone kind of
(44:27):
explaining all the little nooks and crannies of it, which
made me really excited to watch it again. So I
liked it a lot, but I wasn't. I wasn't as
in love with it as some of the other movies.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
Yeah, similar, I think it got overhyped for me a
little bit. And then going into it, it's that scene
that is now, you know, going online with him in
the car and he's going like, I don't know why,
but it totally took me out of the movie. I
started cracking up. I just thought it was it was
so abrupt and everything. I don't know, I just I
(45:02):
found it humorous. I guess.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
I think it's going to be one of those things
where when you watch it for like the fourth or
fifth time, you're gonna be like, I love this, I
love this so much. But like on a first watch,
it's really startling. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
That's like when I first watched Anchorman, I hated it,
and then the more I watched it, I was like,
I get it. I understand it now like before, like
when I first saw it, I didn't get it. I
was like, what is this? This movie?
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Weird?
Speaker 1 (45:29):
Dumb? And of course it's like part of my vernacular
now quoting that movie. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
Yeah, Well, you know what they say about movies like that,
sixty percent of the time they work every time there
you go, oh god.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
So yeah, I want to watch that because I want
to look in the background as well, because I know
that there's a lot of shadows and a lot of
like subtle things throughout the movie that you see a
presence of evil lurk in the background.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
Yeah, and it was a great movie to see with
other people too, because we just stood around for like
forty minutes afterwards and talked theories and like, wait, what
did this mean? I didn't understand this part. I feel
like I don't get to do that a whole lot,
like with these big budget movies, and especially like a
lot of them modern Blumhouse movies, like you even you're like, yeah,
I had some cool scares or like, oh they had
(46:19):
one practical effect that I thought was neat. But yeah,
I want to be challenged, which is why I'm such
a huge advocate for indie films, even though like sometimes
the quality is like way lower, there's just a whole
lot more to think about.
Speaker 1 (46:35):
Absolutely, Yeah. I mean the example I just saw yesterday
was Dede. I mean that movie, like it's my favorite
movie so far, so it just I keep thinking about it.
But a similar thing, you know, it's just yeah, it
actually has something to communicate because I think my favorite
horror movie so far has been Late Night with the
Devil for just the storytelling. And I know that there
(46:57):
was AI and things like that, but you know, not
to put that off to side, but just for this.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
No, but an appropriate amount it needs to be because
it was made and those decisions were made at a
time before we really understood it and people were experimenting,
and like, yes, it would be easy enough for them
to replace it, but like then we're going back and
changing films that had been made to be something different,
(47:24):
you know. And so I think it's fine living as
a piece like a moment in time of history where
we were on the cusp of making a decision as
a society about what AI actually meant.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
Because that was right on the heels of the Hollywood
strike and it was like, yeah, they just got back
and then boom, and that's what everyone's like, Oh, this
movie's great and then But you know, but I enjoyed
that movie a lot. I thought it was intellectual. You know,
it's about grief and loss, which that seems like what
(47:56):
horror is trying to communicate right now. A lot is
just that that thought of just you know, either trauma
or lost. I also saw one of the worst movies
I've seen in a long time. This year Night Swim.
That was.
Speaker 2 (48:13):
Didn't it. I didn't even notice that was out.
Speaker 1 (48:16):
That was not good, Like I just like it reminded
me of like a two thousand and three, you know,
horror movie, like The Boogeyman. I remember that when that
one came out, it seemed like that. I was like, wow,
I didn't know we could make movies this bad still
like this, it was bad.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
Yeah, that sucks. Late Late Night with the Devil had
like and I won't ruin anything for anybody, but the
like the special effects they used at the end were
of a specific, a very specific kind of like after
effects level, you know. That really worked for me and
(48:58):
I thought, we're super cool to look at. And it
reminded me of one of my favorite movies from the
past two years, Studio six sixty six, which has very
similar like the demons and stuff in that were very
two D. But it just was like fun as hell.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
Yeah, that was so much fun. It almost seemed like
the sixties or the seventies when you would have like
the Monkeys they did like a bunch of movies too,
or like The Turtle, you know, like it was what
popular rock band at the time. Let's put them in
this like little movie. And you know, I love that,
you know, I wish more more of that, Like I
(49:37):
would love to see like System of a Down do
something like that. I think that would be hilarious. Like
Surge would just be very intellectual about it and stuff.
I don't yeah, yeah for it all right, Well, coming
towards the end, but let me put you in the
hot seat. So this has been kind of an extended
hot seat. So I'm just gonna throw a few things
out there. You're not to justify them or anything, just
(50:00):
this or that kind of questions as we end this.
So yeah, so this is the hot seat with Josh,
and we'll start in three two one. Josh, what's an
overrated horror movie in your opinion?
Speaker 2 (50:12):
And over That's hard? Oh God, you said I don't
have to qualify it. I'll go quick. You have to
tell you have to look at every film in the
lens of the year that it came out and what
was available at the time. So it's really really hard
for me to say anything in particular. But I guess
I'll just choose the Jason franchise because I don't I
(50:38):
don't get it, like I love the first two films,
and then the rest of it, no idea, and then
I love the last two films.
Speaker 1 (50:46):
Yeah, what's an underrated film in your opinion?
Speaker 2 (50:51):
Jack Brooks Monster Slayer? I not enough people know about it.
It is my personal goal in life to get people
to watch this movie.
Speaker 1 (50:59):
All right, well, you got one person to watch that.
I gotta check that out. Okay, here's here's a question
I've ever asked before. So which slasher movie cast would
you add yourself to?
Speaker 2 (51:11):
Am I a real person in that universe? Or I'm
adding myself to the cast of the movie.
Speaker 1 (51:17):
You are a real person in that universe?
Speaker 2 (51:20):
Oh crap? Does it count?
Speaker 1 (51:25):
Sure?
Speaker 2 (51:25):
Okay, yeah, I think that would be the most interesting.
Speaker 1 (51:29):
Yeah, I like that. That's a good answer. Actually terrifying,
but awesome.
Speaker 2 (51:35):
Yeah, it would be arguably the worst, but the most interesting.
Speaker 1 (51:40):
Yeah, at least you have a bunch of friends.
Speaker 2 (51:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:44):
What is your favorite Halloween special from TV?
Speaker 2 (51:50):
I guess I didn't see much when I was a kid.
I don't remember seeing any when I was a kid.
So most recently I watched Oh what's the British one?
That was like the live broadcast that everybody thought was
real and it's had a resurgence lately. It was on
Shutter the last broadcast. Is that what it's called.
Speaker 1 (52:12):
I'm not sure.
Speaker 2 (52:12):
I don't remember, but it's basically, it's like a British
news organization covering a haunting happening at somebody's house and
it just like plays out as real and it was
really really kind of fun.
Speaker 1 (52:24):
That's awesome. Yeah, is there any horror film location you
would love to visit?
Speaker 2 (52:32):
Ghost Watch? That's what it was called. Sorry, okay, ask
that question again.
Speaker 1 (52:37):
Okay, last question we'll ask you, Josh, is is there
a horror film location that you would love to visit?
Speaker 2 (52:46):
Oh? Wow, dead Air. Well, I grew up in New Jersey,
so I feel like I've been pretty close to like
the Blair Witch and the Toxic Avenger and stuff like that.
So not that, I mean, I guess I don't know.
(53:09):
This is a really hard question. Oh oh, okay, I
got it. It would be the whatever they used is
the set for the mansion for the Haunting of Hill
House with Mike Flo.
Speaker 1 (53:23):
Yeah, yeah, all right, well that's the Haunts. It's I mean,
it matches outside. All right, Well, Josh, thank you, So
much for being on Ready Retro. Please tell our listeners
where they can find all all the awesome stuff and
if there's anything upcoming that you would like to plug.
Speaker 2 (53:46):
Yeah, I use the name Haunting Season like hunting season,
but for ghosts Haunting season. On all of my platforms,
it's YouTube, it's TikTok, Instagram, letterboxed, and I now have
my movie Club, which is in my discord which you
can it's free for everybody. I also do have a
(54:07):
Patreon where I am saving up for doing some longer
form storytelling again, either in the form of podcast or
short films or YouTube. I haven't quite decided yet, but
I know what the story is and it's going to
be really, really amazing, and so links for all of
that if you just either look me up on Instagram
or TikTok. I have one link in the bio. It's
(54:28):
a link tree awesome.
Speaker 1 (54:30):
And we will put the link tree, but we'll also
put some of those links in the description of this
episode as well, So go in there click on it.
Thank you so much for being on. This was awesome,
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (54:42):
Fun.
Speaker 1 (54:43):
Yeah, all right, we'll see you next week. We're ready
to retro, are you compt
Hey, everybody, welcome to episode one ninety five of the
Ready to Retro podcast. It is week two of Spooky September.
The day that we are recording this. It's one hundred
and six hundred and eight in LA depending on where
you are. But the day just got even hotter because
we have a special guest with us. We have Josh
(00:41):
from the Haunting season. You guys know him on TikTok
and so much more. But Josh, thank you so much
for being on Ready to Retro.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Hey, yeah, I'm glad for a couple more minutes in
the air conditioning before I bike home for forty five minutes.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
So that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Yeah, yeah, we got a I got an e bike
instead of a second car, and it's been great until
this week.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
That's crazy. Yeah. And you're gonna be biking like the
hottest part of the day.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Oh yeah, oh yeah. And because the traffic is so dangerous,
I go all the way up, like through Griffith Park
and like the long way home, So it's it's not
gonna be great.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Well, at least you don't have to go to the
gym anytime soon because you'll probably lose ten pounds.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Yeah yeah, I hope the audience is ready, because this
is gonna be I think a five hour podcast until
the sun goes down.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
So well, awesome for those who don't know you, Josh,
can you tell our listeners and those viewing just who
you are and what brings you here?
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Too?
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Ready to retro?
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Yeah, well, I grew up in the eighties and nineties,
so that's retro. I got started in like content creation.
We didn't call it back, you know, back then, content creation.
But I got into filmmaking and stuff when I was
in high school and pursued it for a while after college.
(02:02):
And then buddy of mine and I realized that there
wasn't really much going on in the horror space on YouTube,
and so in twenty thirteen I started a web series
called Haunting Season, where I started out telling my own
original I started out telling my own stories about being
a kid and you know, going to haunted places. But
(02:23):
I only had a couple of those, so I started
writing my own stories. I did it every week for
two years, and then got super burned out and put
the project aside and went to become a professional filmmaker.
And then like right before the pandemic, we were the
company I work with. We were trying to come up
with ideas for, like, how do we get back into
the entertainment space because everything I do for work is
(02:44):
largely in rare disease advocacy documentary space. And so I
pitched Haunting Season coming Back as a podcast, and we
did that for a little bit where I kind of
every fourth episode was a new story, and then you know,
there were interviews and stuff and that was really fun.
And then TikTok took off and I was lucky enough
(03:06):
to be in the early wave of that when things
were like really blowing up for just about everybody. Yeah,
I got a pretty big following that I still can't
really believe. And so I've just been kind of doing
that for a while. But now I'm kind of shifting
back towards longer form storytelling and that's that's pretty much
who I am.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
That's awesome. Thank you for sharing your story with us.
Got to ask you, like, what is it about horror
that entices you, that gets you excited? You could have
done a YouTube video on anything, but why horror.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Yeah, my mom asked me this all the time. There's
something about genre filmmaking that I think expresses the human
experience in such a unique way that no other format
really does at the extreme. And I've always been kind
(04:00):
of an extreme person. I'm not a risk taker. I'm
not someone who like, you know, does any sort of
Red Bull sponsored sport or anything. But I do like
the idea of danger. I do like the idea of stress,
and like, even from being a little kid, I used
to see how long I could stand, like with the
(04:22):
basement door open in my back to the darkness, you
know that that sort of thing that has always been
fun to me. And I feel like growing up in
the church, I always kind of believed in ghosts and
spooky stuff, and my dad was kind of into playing
with that a little bit, not not playing with ghosts,
but like playing with the idea that the you know,
(04:43):
the spiritual world was out there. Yeah. I don't know.
I mean it's funny because science fiction was my first
love and that kind of brought me to horror. That
was like my gateway. But I didn't feel like I
was really smart enough to write science fiction, so horror
it seemed like a good second spot.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Yeah, there's something about horror where the imagination there's really
no limits, right, I mean, we're talking about vampires and werewolves,
and you don't need a lot of Like I don't know.
I guess that science fiction is like or you need
a base for that. It needs to be real. With horror,
anything goes. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Yeah, it's not just the future, but it could be
the past, it could be the present, it could be
literally there's zero limitations, just as messed up as you
can make it. But I also just love that the
symbolism of the stories, like I saw, okay, so a
little bit of a journey here. I saw just randomly
(05:43):
was looking for anthology films around Halloween a couple of
years ago and discovered All Hallows Eve, which has Terrifier
the clown or Art the clown from Terrifyer in it.
That was like his origin and then I was like, ooh,
I want more of this clown. So I watched Terrifier
and was mortified and thought, like, what's the point? I
can't figure it out like that. It just seems like
(06:03):
a bunch of brutality against women and it really kind
of bothered me, and so I didn't go see Terrifier too,
which I'm now a huge fan of. I actually have
a VHS of it that I just paid way too
much money for because I like, I need it. I
need it, and watching it, I feel like I've found
all the answers to like why art exists, what he represents,
(06:26):
how it's linked to the main character and all of
that stuff. And I'm when I watch horror, that's what
I'm hungry for, is like deep, deep meaning that is
so hidden behind gore and ridiculousness and creepy looking monsters
that it's hard to dig out, but you can just
kind of pick at it until you figure it out.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Yeah, I mean, like for me, the reason why I
love horror is, like you said, there's that layer underneath
it all right. Like one of my favorite movies, horror movies,
is the Thing, and the thing is about isolation and
are you or as humans, are we supposed to be isolated?
Are we? Are we supposed to be by ourselves? Are
(07:06):
we supposed to be at each other's throats? You know?
And it's this whole idea of like the scary thing
is being alone and everybody's you know, coming at you.
So I loved kind of the unpacking things like that.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Yeah, and also like what it is to take to
remove like a small group of people from society completely, right,
because you find this when you get a roommate, even
you know, you don't pick your best friend as your
roommate because by the end of it, you don't have
a best friend anymore.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Right, Yeah, No, it's true, and I would I would
probably think none of those guys in it, and there
were probably none of them were best friends. But yeah,
So going back to childhood, and as this is a
nostalgic podcast, do you have any like fond memories of
the spooky season, Halloween, anything like that, things that come
(07:57):
to your mind when I say that.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Yeah, I always loved dressing up, and you know, it
was like eighties and nineties, so our parents were making
our costumes and I like to get really involved in that.
Like one of my favorite photos from when I was
a kid was me dressed up as Dick Tracy. I
had a classic mullet haircut. I had this like black
(08:19):
denim vest and the red tie and I remember I
would like throw it over my shoulder when I ran,
because in the comics it would be like over his shoulder. Yeah,
And so like I would always it was never I
never wanted to be scary. Things like you know, one
Euro's Johnny Depp from Pirates of the Caribbean and one
euro is the clown, the Joker from the Dark Night.
(08:43):
You know, it was just like characters that like spoke
to me. I would want to just like have an
opportunity to have a little part of that, almost like cosplay.
But I didn't know what that was in like high
school and college. And I think that had always been
that way for me, like as a kid, because I
know I was like Robin Hood the year that I
was super into that Disney Robin Hood movie. Okay, those
are the ones I can remember.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
It's funny because Robin Hood, what's as similar costume as
I was Peter Pan for two years in a row.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Oh yeah, same result, yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Oh yeah yeah, same same tights too. That's awesome. Do
you have a favorite costume from from back in the day?
Speaker 2 (09:21):
No, I mean, like those are all the ones I
can like vividly remember. I don't have a visual memory,
so it's hard for me without like seeing photos for sure.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
For sure, is there a costume you still want to
pull off or one that you're like dying to do
if there was like no money that was holding you back?
Speaker 2 (09:40):
It's hard because I think about this all the time
as as a bearded, bald person. There's not a whole
lot of like horror icons that I could be, And
I don't know, I don't think about it too often
because I feel like it bums me out. But if
I had zero limitations, I don't know, it'd be really
(10:00):
fun to do something from the re Animator or gosh,
I don't know, hard question, yeah, or actually no limitations.
I'd like to do like some big, crazy, crazy monster
like with practicals and everything.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
That'd be awesome, Like some kind of xenomorph that you
just be on stilts or something.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Yeah, were like one of the blubbery flesh monsters from
like the Void, you know, just like yeah, yeah, just
like flesh hanging everywhere. And yeah, well I was sticking.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
You were saying that there isn't a lot of you know,
bald guys with beards and horror. It sounds like you
gotta make that movie man.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, well it's a dream. Yeah for sure.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Was there any like particular candy that you loved growing up, Like,
you know, you're going out Sigar Tree, like I gotta
have these those candy in my bag.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Yeah, when I was younger, it was three Musketeer and
I don't know why. Like when I was really young,
I thought they it was filled with tuna fish. But
because like the texture of the chocolate on the outside. Yeah,
I don't know, you know, can I say that I
wasn't thinking flavors. But then as I got a little
bit older, I feel like, in like middle school, I
really latched onto peppermint patties, and if I ever see
(11:19):
like a full sized peppermint patty, I still get pretty excited.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
See those are the ones I put off to the side.
But my favorite is dots. And people say that about dots.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Are they the ones on the paper or are they
the they're like the thimble looking ones.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Yeah, those ones, the ones in the yellow boxes and
they get stuck in your teeth.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Oh yeah, they're kind of waxy.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Yeah, I love them. I don't know why. I've always
loved those, And recently they've been putting out like seasonal dots.
They have these ghost ones now where it's like a
mystery flavor during Christmas. They have little vanilla tips on it,
so it's kind of like snow. I don't know. I'm
a big dots. Guy, cool, everyone makes fun of me,
(12:02):
so yeah, I'm like.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Oh, make fun of you. I think it's great.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Thank you. I'm like, they're like, what's your favorite cannon?
Like dots? Like dots? What are you from? Born in
nineteen forty five?
Speaker 2 (12:13):
I was like, I think the ones on the paper
were buttons? Were they just told?
Speaker 1 (12:17):
I know? Yeah, I don't know what those were called.
But anytime you would try to many button, yeah, yeah,
you would eat them like off the paper, but half
of it would be actual paper and you're like scraping
them off with your teeth. And yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
I don't know how old you are, but I feel
like I feel like there was some terrible candy growing up.
Yeah up thirty four, thirty four Okay, I'm thirty nine,
so not too far off.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Yeah, yeah, what were some of the caddies you were
thinking of that were terrible wax lips?
Speaker 2 (12:49):
And then there were like the coke bottles that were
wax that you have to like bite the cap off
of and then drink the syrup in the inside.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Yeah, it was gross. It was like so messy too,
Like I would always like bite it and then squirts
everywhere and then do.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
You know what this just reminded me. One of the
greatest candies of all time that actually uh surpasses peppermint
patties for me are the little rootierd barrels. Those are
good that any There's one like Mexican restaurant up in
Lacanada somewhere that always has them, and every time we
eat there, I'm like.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Yes, because there's some that are like there's like your
basic ones, but there's like some that are like gourmet
roopier ones.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Yeah, and they like really look like a barrel. They
have like some took a took a very fine needle
and etched it all in.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Those are so good because you just suck on them
for a long time and it's like a treat for
minutes on it.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Yeah, yeah, minute minutes minutes on end.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
I don't like that restaurants don't give out like little
breath mints or little candies anymore. That used to be
so awesome as a kid.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
That would once in a while you can find the
really powdery mints. But then like in New Jersey, especially
at like the Italian joints, they would have some sort
of like gelatin in the middle, so there would be
like that powdery mint, but then it would be like
lemon on the inside.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
I don't know, that's not out here that much. I
don't know about that. Yeah, the pottery mint, and it
would just dissolve in your mouth. And you know, do
you have any spooky traditions that you do now or
have continued to do as a kid. Uh?
Speaker 2 (14:35):
You know. I feel like the pandemic interrupted any sort
of like growing get togethers that I used to do.
I used to really try to do some sort of
like move it on, get together with some people. Now
I have a digital movie club, so I might be
able to bring that back and in meaningful way. But
for the most part, my wife and I just watch
(14:56):
The Craft, Practical Magic, Hocus Poke, and Halloween three season
of The Witch. Those are on like the Foreshore Halloween
Week watch list, and then we sprinkle from there.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
There you go. So you're in the LA area. Do
you go to any of the haunts? Do you go
to Universal or Notts or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
I'm going to Halloween Hornites for the very first time
this year. Oh wow, Yeah, I'm excited. And I haven't
been to a haunt other than the pop up ones
that they have at Midsummer Scream every year. I haven't
been to an actual haunt in oh god, it was
probably twenty fourteen was the last time I did one,
(15:41):
and it was up in Minneapolis, and it was one
of the scariest ones like in the country, and it
was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Well, I hope that Universal's inviting you and you're not
just going there because it's a it's a bunch of
lines like I used to love going and I don't
want to you know, poopoo on it. But I hope
you have a I mean, it's fun, it's just I
have a little.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Bit of a hook up. It's directly through them. But
a friend of a friend happened to be able to
get me an extra ticket with like frontline passes, So
I'm excited.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Then you're you're good to go, yeah, which leaves.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Me open to maybe also squeezing in not Scary Farm
if I if I can manage.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
I would say, you know, in both of them, because
I would go to both of them all the time,
like from high school, college, all the way through Knots is.
The whole atmosphere of the whole park is just awesome.
Just the way that Universal is it's kind of split
up and there's certain parts where it's not dark, or
(16:45):
you're on the elevator going up and down from the
upper lot to the lower lot. But the thing that's
so awesome about Knots is like the entire park, you're
anywhere you go, you're pretty much in a scare zone
and it's free for all for any monsters to come out.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
And that makes sense too, because they're the they're the original,
right like they're they're the og.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Yeah. No, it's super fun. And then you mentioned mid Summer.
I was there as well this year. Yeah, it was,
it was fun, it was, it was great. I loved
what they did with the haunts this year, and it
seems like that area is getting bigger and bigger every year.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Yeah, that was a major upgrade this year. And I'm
sure that it didn't hurt that Lionsgate had their own
right spot. I bet that really helped amp things up.
That hunt and the Scooby Doo one were like phenomenal
this year.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Yeah. Yeah, the one at the end right, Scooby Doo.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Was directly across from lions Gate and it had all
the Scooby characters in it.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
I didn't do that one.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Oh my gosh, it was amazing. So when you go
in there was it was different the two times that
I did it, But the first time it was Daphne
and she was like, oh, you know, Scooby went this
way and you gotta find him or whatever. And so
then you go into this like swamp and there's like
a pirate and everything, and like something lurking underneath. They
did one of those like laser swamps, so you can't
(18:07):
see below the surface. And then you go around the
corner and it's a hallway of doors and the characters
are going in one door and out another like criss crossing,
just like in the cartoon. And then at the very end,
Velma ran out and scared us after we thought it
was over and was like, did you find him? Did
you find him?
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Oh? Wow, that's great.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
It was really really cool.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Oh man, I missed it. No, I went to the
Lionsgate one. I didn't went to the like toy story.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
One that was Oh I didn't make it into that one.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
That was that was that was solid. They're always so quick, right.
I was in line for one for forty five minutes
and I don't know what was going on, but the
line did not move. And just when you thought like
it didn't matter if you had a gold bat or regular,
it's just it wasn't moving. And I was waiting and waiting.
I was like, forget, Like when you're at Midsummer, you
(18:57):
got to maximize your time, So waiting forty five minutes,
it's like I got you.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Know, It's insane how quickly the time goes by at
a conference. I didn't make it to a single panel.
I was just really I was either on the exhibition
floor or in the Haunt Hall, and I was just
running into so many people because it was my third
year going and the first year one person recognized me,
and I thought like life can't get any better than this,
(19:23):
Like this is I've made it, you know. And then
and I also met up with Josh b Leveck, who's
another horror content creator and has become a really really
good friend, and we just walked the floor together like
the whole day that I was there. The next year,
I got media pass and was able to do a
whole lot more, But the panels that I went to,
(19:43):
I felt like I was like running from one to
another to try and cover them. And I was standing
in the back, and it just was a lot of
split time, and I feel like I didn't get to
do as much. And then this year, I just so
many people I knew were there that I felt like
I the majority of what I did for the entire
conference was stand in different parts of the of the
(20:05):
hall and just talk and it was amazing. It was
so much fun. So next year you and I got
to hang out in person.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Absolutely absolutely. But that's what a convention's all about, right, Like,
if you go to a work convention, you're going there
to network or to see you know, colleagues or people
used to work with or whatever. So I think, like
comic cons or in this case Midsummer being a horror convention,
it should be the same vibe. It should be about
the community. I know people want to like experience things,
(20:35):
but I had a similar experience. I just went to
a Power Rangers convention a few weeks ago. Oh yeah,
power Morphicon. It's the biggest Power Rangers convention in the world,
and it's in Pasadena, my hometown. So Saturday, I was
just you know, it's so crowded, but I was just
catching up with some people that I've met through the community.
(20:57):
And just you know, other content creator or whatever. So yeah,
I feel like convention should be about that should be
about celebrating the communities that you're part of and that
you love one hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
That's been the most rewarding part of doing all of
this because you get burnt out on creating the content.
I'm sure there are months where you're like, I gotta
make a podcast episode and I'd rather die, you know,
because it is work. It is a lot of work,
and it's very singular work. It's very isolated, and to
be able to connect with those people, which is why
(21:33):
I've been pushing my movie. I call it my movie Club.
It's really just a discord of like minded people that
hang out. But why I've been pushing that so hard
is because I find more joy in the like fifty
people that are in there than I do with like
the mixed comments of people being like that movie was
mid or like that movie sogged balls. You know, like
(21:54):
nobody cares if you didn't like a movie. But if
you can connect on a human level and like talk
about things maybe you did like, or change the subject
and be just like a normal conversing human, that is
so much better. So much more fun.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Absolutely, I mean a few years ago, and I'll be
a little open here on the podcast, haven't really mentioned this,
but there was like a you know, at first, you know,
you have aspirations of what this could be. And at
a certain point where I was like, you know what,
based off of my life, my schedule, you know, the
rhythms of my life. I don't think this is going
(22:30):
to go full time or you know, it's not going
to be really lucrative, and that's okay, but what is
going to fill me up is the connections I have,
the friends that I mean, and like there's people now
that I've met podcasting and there's some of my closest friends.
And it's crazy, Like the job I'm in now was
(22:50):
because of a podcaster and her husband's like, hey, if
you need a job, just just let them know. And
I needed a job and you know, but it's just
it's so cool like podcasting, you know what you're doing
on TikTok. That's what it should be about. It should
be about the community first, not just trying to make
(23:11):
a quick book. At least that's that's my two cents
on it.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Yeah, because I found myself. I love my career, and
I would never leave it for content creation. I just
don't have It's just not interesting to me, Whereas like
the work that I actually do in my life and
my work life is making a difference in the world,
you know, and not that like making people happy isn't
but like, you know, I have a larger purpose through that.
(23:35):
So I was never looking at it as like a
means to an end, which I think puts me in
a different boat, because I think a lot of people
are on social media nowadays, especially with TikTok being what
it is, with the idea of I can get out,
this is my ticket out, and it happens for some people,
it's not realistic for others, and it's really hard to
(23:55):
draw that line. And I found myself getting to a
point where I was putting so much effort into the
extracurricular stuff, the TikTok, the Instagram posts, the podcast, the YouTube.
I had to ask myself, like, if I dropped all
of it and all I did with my life was
go to work and then go home and relax and
(24:17):
hang out with my wife, if it would be enough.
And as soon as I realized like, yeah, then it
took all the weight off of everything else, and I
was able to just be like, Okay, so I haven't
posted in two days whatever, Whereas like I used to
kind of start to have panic attacks about that because
I'd be like, oh, I got to keep the momentum.
I'm not going to grow, I'm not gonna be it's
(24:39):
it's it's can so easily become just such a huge
mental stressor in people's lives. And so many of the
people of the content creators that I talked to we
get together and you know, like everybody likes to vent
and everybody likes to bitch and moan, but like the
people who are lost in it, it's like it's it's
(25:01):
not worth it. M m yeah, yeah, totally not to
get heavy.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
No, this is cool. I mean, this is this is
just where the conversation is going. It just makes me think,
I saw d D yesterday. Have you seen that movie yet?
Speaker 2 (25:15):
No? I really want to because I skateboarded when I
was a kid, and so anytime any story like that
comes out, I'm like huge on it.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Yeah. So, I mean put the nostalgia aside, which they
do it really well, and it's not a gimmick. It's
just really the kind of the sandbox they create. It's
just like the early YouTube days. And I remember that
it was like vlogs, right, like Lonely Girl and you know,
all this stuff, and it was that's how YouTube started.
And now you know, it is what it is, and
(25:45):
you got studios involved, and you know, movies, studios and
all this stuff, but just simplifying. And I think the
same thing with TikTok. You know, I think it's going
through some growing pains a little bit, and the algorithm
kind of changed. And I'm sure you can speak more
to that, but I just feel like that platform has
(26:06):
changed a lot, and because there is so much money
involved that I don't know, it just seems like the
charm a little bit has kind of faded.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Well, that's the thing, like, at the end of the day,
social media platforms are businesses that are looking to make
as much money as possible, and the strategy that every
single one of them has used in the past is
let's give away a bunch of free shit. Let's get
people really really amped up. And then once we have
all the users making all this amazing stuff for free
(26:38):
for us and our platform is worldwide recognizable, that's when
we can start to figure out how to charge money
for it, and so it's a you know, you start
your company with an investment and you use all of
that investment until you hit rock bottom, but that's when
you start charging out the ass and then you become
this like big mega, you know, billionaire corporation. And I
(26:59):
think there was this real they did something magical with
the algorithm when it first came out, where anybody could
be discovered, and it didn't ever feel like that on Instagram,
it didn't ever feel like that on maybe early YouTube days.
But it was like anybody could be discovered by accident,
not like anybody could be discovered on purpose because of
(27:20):
this amazing algorithm, right, And so there was this like
mysticism around it that it was like the great wild
frontier of the Internet that was going to change everything.
And then now where we're at, it's just like there's nothing.
I don't know, it's such a it can be such
a dark place and it can be such a wholesome
(27:41):
and wonderful place too. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
No, And that's where I like watching your tiktoks is
you know, this is the first time that we're kind
of interacting like this, even it was a cold ask,
you know, but I've been following your tiktoks for a
while and you just seem like genuine and just having
this interact with you for the last thirty minutes, I'm like,
you know, the person that you are on TikTok is
(28:06):
kind of the same person I'm talking to right now.
So that's actually it's cool to see It's neat to
see me in.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Yeah, thanks. Yeah, I mean, I'm a jelly guy, and
you know, obviously, like everybody's online persona is only a
portion of who they are. Like, I like things that
aren't just horror movies. I might have a big collection
and be a little bit of a nerd about it,
but you know, I like watching rom coms, you know,
I like going out into nature, and I feel like
(28:34):
those things. And I also I get sad, you know,
like a real human being, and I feel like I
try to put as much of that out on the
Internet as I feel comfortable with. But there's every single
person you see online, it is only just a small
fraction of who they are for sure.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Yeah, and I love you know, your thrift store adventures. Yeah,
and those are fun. What makes you want to just
share that with the world, you know, because it's a
little different from the format that you normally do. But yeah,
tell us about your thrift store adventures.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Yeah, so okay. So when I started TikTok, I was
because I'm in filmmaking. I was looking at it from
a business perspective, and I was doing a wide range
of things that I thought would be interesting, and the
ones that performed the best is how I narrowed it
down to mostly doing like movie reviews. And for the
(29:32):
first like two years, maybe even close to three, I
really was watching like fifteen horror movies a month and
reviewing them and shooting in batches of like twenty videos
and then editing them all together. And it was like
it was so much work, and I was doing it
with like a nicer camera, and I was doing it
in premiere instead of like on my phone. And part
(29:55):
of the burnout that happened from that, and part of
that conversation I was talking about earlier, where I was
I was like, if I just dropped everything and left,
would I like emotionally be okay with it? Could I
just be a normal human who doesn't make content? I
think when I came to that realization and was okay
with it. Then I started to think of like, well, okay,
(30:17):
so what do I want to do? Because this whole
time I've been doing what I think the Internet wants
me to do. So what do I want to do?
And my wife and I are avid thrifters. Our entire
home is thrifted, with the exception of a few like
staple pieces. Yeah, I mean, like you think this is busy,
There's not a single inch of our house that isn't
covered in some wall hanging or you know, piece of art.
(30:41):
And our clothing for the most part, is all thrifted.
It's just something we love because we can go out
and we can fill the car for like one hundred
and fifty bucks and it feels like you went shopping
all day long because you did. Yeah, you don't spend
like a ton of money, and then you don't feel
bad when you cycle things out and redonate things and
replace them in your home. Soeng and we just love stuff.
(31:04):
My wife calls it clutter core. It's just like clutter everywhere,
but it's with a purpose and it's designed. So yeah,
since this is like a hobby that we love and
because of the way, you know, like there are more
options for women than there are for men when it
comes to clothing traditionally, and so I have less to
(31:27):
do in a thrift store. Also, I don't think men
donate as much as women do. And so I'll go
through a thrift store in like fifteen to thirty minutes,
and my wife will sometimes need an hour because there's
like an amazing section. And so I've figured out if
I just am making a video about going in there,
(31:48):
well then I can go sit in the air conditioning
in the car and edit the video and I have
something to do instead of like moping around and following
her and being hungry for like the next hit of
going to another store.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Yeah, oh that's funny. No, you mentioned, like you know
there's less clothes for men. It's because men will wear
out their t shirts until they throw it away. It's
not even donatable, you know, like you have like just
have holes and like you know, your shoes have holes
and stuff, like you know, nobody wants this, but.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
You know, yeah, shoes for sure. Like my wife has
been like just donate those shoes, and I'm like, I
would not give these to an unhoused person, like they
are my toes hang out the bottom.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Exactly, so that's that's right there. I think it's pretty
accurate too. It's just men kind of just wear out
their clothes, you know.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
This is why some of the greatest clothing finds that
I've found in my thrifting have been like women's jackets
that fit me really well. Nice. Yeah, I have this
leopard print one. My wife actually found it and bought
it for herself, but I stole it because it fits
perfectly and it drops right at my beltline, and I
wear it to like most of the premieres I go
to that aren't in the summer, and every single time
(33:02):
people are like, the jacket's amazing.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
I'm like, I know, Yeah, I have this sick quicksilver
neon like windbreaker kind of jacket with like it's it's
got a hood, it's got a pockets. It's from like
nineteen ninety two, ninety three, and I remember getting that
in college and it was awesome. Like thrifting before iPhones
(33:26):
and before smartphones were so awesome because now it's so
easy to oh, what's this and you just do a
QR code scan and yeah, oh this is worth you know,
eighty bucks on eBay all right, Well, we're gonna put
it for like fifty bucks.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
That's why we do a lot of our thrifting outside
of LA. Like, anytime we take a trip and it's
a personal trip, we go southwest so that we can
have extra bags for free, and we nest our luggage
on the way there with like empty suitcases, so then
when we get there, we just fill them up and
then we fly home.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
That's funny. My wife and I have done that too.
I'll normally be looking for records, right and just yeah,
so they're a lot cheaper outside of LA and any
kind of like thrift stores out I'm always looking. It
was historically I was always looking for retro video games.
That's a lot harder to find now, but yeah, now
(34:22):
it's just been records and sometimes just books, certain books.
I'm looking for nostalgia books or anything like that. So yeah, yeah, cool,
Well maybe one day we can go thrifting. I know
a couple of good spots that are still you know,
hidden gems in the LA area.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
All Right, I love we can love dueling who has
the best thrift store?
Speaker 1 (34:44):
That sounds like a challenge. Here's ten bucks, Yeah, the
best outfit? Yeah, all right, We're gonna take a quick
break and when we come back, we're gonna hear more
from Josh and we're gonna ask him some of his
favorite horror movies. So don't go in all right, we
(35:06):
are back here on ready to retro. We are with
Josh from the Haunting season. So, Josh, I know this
answer because I saw in one of the videos you mentioned,
But can you tell our listeners what is the scariest
movie you've ever seen?
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Okay, I was trying to think of this because I
saw your questions in the Zoom Invite. There's a couple now,
and they're all kind of on the same level for me,
most recently, both from the same director when Evil Lyrics
and Terrified they're Argentina in movies, and both of them
(35:43):
just absolutely to my core, like scared the living daylights
out of me. And I haven't felt that with I
felt stressed, I've felt you know, anxious from a movie,
but I haven't felt like scared in a really long time,
and those did it for me.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Terrified definitely does it.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Yeah, it just like.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
It.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Oh, it just gets under your skin and it's They're
amazing movies to watch, and like Pitch black in an
empty house alone, which is like, how I kind of
chase that like childhood fear that you used to feel
when you were first discovering horror movies. Oh yeah, I
either do that at home or when I get to
a hotel room before I'm familiar with like the layout,
(36:27):
on the first night, I'll close the blinds and turn
all the lights off and watch something that I think
will scare the pants off me. So those two, and
then there's a tie like documentary styled found footage movie
called The Medium that I watched like a year or
two ago that still freaks me out when I think
about it, and like I was scared walking around my
(36:47):
house after I watched it. And then Evil Dead twenty
thirteen was like the movie theater scary one for me
that like I went and saw that alone and I
sat with my feet up on the seat like holding
my legs.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
And then the last one, so what I was thinking of,
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah sorry.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
And then the last one is from my childhood and
for some reason, it's still scares of live in daylights
out of me. And you can make fun of me,
but you eat dots. It's m night Shyamalan signs.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Dude, yes, I love that movie.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
It's a perfect film. But my brother and I when
we would put it on, we would like wait for
my parents to both go out, and then we would
put it on at night. And the menu that just
had the sounds coming through on the DVD menu with
the baby monitor, Like, I almost couldn't play the movie.
I was so scared.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
I recently saw maybe not recently, this was a couple
of months ago, but I saw somebody posts the iconic
scene where it's the revealed the alien and the aliens
looking at the camera and you know, it's what is
it like Mexico or something with all the all the
kids and.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
Oh yeah, yeah those children.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
Yeah yeah. And then but that scene and then the
caption was scariest scene ever. And then everyone in the comments,
not everyone, a lot of people are like, oh, how
could you say this is the scariest thing. But to
I responded was you can't just take a scene outside
(38:23):
of the context. The entire movie was building to that
one scene. Therefore, that scene was like so moving and
it and it gripped you, like it was scary. It
was startling because the entire movie was building to that
one reveal, and I think that's when a horror movie
does it really well. It's not just that a scary scene,
(38:45):
it's how is it building to that scene?
Speaker 2 (38:49):
Yeah, and they didn't over show it in that moment either.
It was that bigfoot footage, you know, where it's blurry
and the frames of the news camera are kind of
lending together when it's paused, and it's just like enough
to get under your skin.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
Yeah. Oh that's good. Well, if we ever do a
review on that movie, I know who to call. There's
a lot of ac I want DIBs on that.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
I know all the behind the scenes stories. Yeah sold.
I mean they're just on the DVD, but I know them.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
Yeah. So the uh found footage. One that got me
was paranorl activity the first one.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Oh yeah in the theater that was unreal.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
Oh yeah, similar to you. I also grew up in
the church, so you know, the whole demon possession and
things like that. But wild enough. About three weeks ago,
I was in San Diego. My wife was at a conference,
or were a conference, and I was visiting her for
a day and I was like, you know what, I
got some alone time in San Diego I'm gonna hit
(39:55):
up Sombrero, the Mexican place that Blink one eight two
sings about and near there is also the Paranormal Activity House,
and yeah, so you know it's it's just in a suburb.
It's just like in this neighborhood. They're all track houses,
so you know, I want to be respectful. There's it's
just a regular neighborhood. But I got the chills because
(40:16):
the entire movie was filmed there, not just like the exterior,
the interior too. So I was out there, you know,
just taking a picture and doing a quick video. But
I you know that that movie scared the hell out
of me.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
Du Yeah, yeah. I recently put it on because sometimes
I'll put on movies while I'm at work, just have
them on on the side because like, oh I've seen it.
It'll be like I'll peek over every once in a while.
And it started to feel like it wasn't going to
hold up, and so I just like turned it off
and I was like, no, the next time I watched this,
(40:51):
it's going to be in the dark with the lights out,
Like I can't. I can't daylight this movie right now.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
I remember see the third one and It was just me,
my roommate and another one of our buddies. And I
remember walking into this small theater in Azusa and my
roomy just goes, no, I don't like this. No, like
you just thought like that, us being by ourselves, because
we watched the whole movie. It was just us like
that somehow the demon was gonna like come out of
(41:22):
the screen and screen and get us.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
So yeah, well, and they had rumors too when that
movie came out, like you know, crazy things like you know,
people were having miscarriages because they got so scared in
the theater and like someone died of a heart attack, and.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
Yeah, dude, that's serious. I mean they they were just
pomping them out right after one after another, like I
don't even know where away. I know it went to four.
I don't know what's a five, but uh, the first
the first two got me.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
There were like offshoots, so I know the most recent
one was like Kindred Spirit or something like that, and
you know, I don't know, Yeah I watched the first three,
maybe the first four, but yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:06):
Okay, I know I watched the first four.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
Oh the fourth one had the Xbox Connect.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
Yeah, yeah, it is that one. Yeah. Yeah, So twenty
twenty four, there's been a lot of horror movies, and
there's been a lot of good ones as of right now.
What are some of the ones that you've really enjoyed
watching this year so far?
Speaker 2 (42:26):
Yeah, I've missed quite a few, but I was doing
pretty good at the beginning of the year. I travel
a lot for work, so when I miss I miss
like chunks, but for me for fun. And the most
recent one, Alien Romulus, I just loved it was like
a Greatest Hits album of alien moments. And I just
love Fetti Alvarez. I think he's brilliant. And I am
(42:50):
never bothered by a fan fiction film, which is really
what these are, right. It's not Ridley Scott making a
sequel to his first. It's fan fiction because it's just
like directors who are like, yeah, cool, I'll do it
so that that stuff never bothers me. For originality, I
think I have to say Cuckoo.
Speaker 1 (43:10):
I haven't seen that one yet.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
I've really loved it. I really loved it because it
was unexpected throughout it didn't remind me of anything. It
didn't like I have no way of explaining it to
people without ruining it, and I love movies like that. Yeah,
and it just like it has some great scares. I
had some really great acting. I mean, I just also
(43:34):
really loved Maxine and immaculate and the first omen those
are three like big ones for me this year.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
What were your thoughts on long Links? Did you see
that yet?
Speaker 2 (43:44):
Yeah? I did. I'm really eager to see it again.
So I saw it and I had ridden the hype
up and then I had ridden the anti hype down,
so I felt like I was in a good place
to see it. I couldn't on first watch. I couldn't
let go of the fact that it was Nick Cage.
Speaker 1 (44:04):
Me too, me too.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
And so part of me kept thinking, like, oh man,
if this was an unknown actor but doing the same performance,
would this scare me? You know, like, would I be horrified.
I love the style of the movie, I love the storytelling.
I love how like cryptic it is. And I watched
a like a twenty minute video of someone kind of
(44:27):
explaining all the little nooks and crannies of it, which
made me really excited to watch it again. So I
liked it a lot, but I wasn't. I wasn't as
in love with it as some of the other movies.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
Yeah, similar, I think it got overhyped for me a
little bit. And then going into it, it's that scene
that is now, you know, going online with him in
the car and he's going like, I don't know why,
but it totally took me out of the movie. I
started cracking up. I just thought it was it was
so abrupt and everything. I don't know, I just I
(45:02):
found it humorous. I guess.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
I think it's going to be one of those things
where when you watch it for like the fourth or
fifth time, you're gonna be like, I love this, I
love this so much. But like on a first watch,
it's really startling. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
That's like when I first watched Anchorman, I hated it,
and then the more I watched it, I was like,
I get it. I understand it now like before, like
when I first saw it, I didn't get it. I
was like, what is this? This movie?
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Weird?
Speaker 1 (45:29):
Dumb? And of course it's like part of my vernacular
now quoting that movie. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
Yeah, Well, you know what they say about movies like that,
sixty percent of the time they work every time there
you go, oh god.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
So yeah, I want to watch that because I want
to look in the background as well, because I know
that there's a lot of shadows and a lot of
like subtle things throughout the movie that you see a
presence of evil lurk in the background.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
Yeah, and it was a great movie to see with
other people too, because we just stood around for like
forty minutes afterwards and talked theories and like, wait, what
did this mean? I didn't understand this part. I feel
like I don't get to do that a whole lot,
like with these big budget movies, and especially like a
lot of them modern Blumhouse movies, like you even you're like, yeah,
I had some cool scares or like, oh they had
(46:19):
one practical effect that I thought was neat. But yeah,
I want to be challenged, which is why I'm such
a huge advocate for indie films, even though like sometimes
the quality is like way lower, there's just a whole
lot more to think about.
Speaker 1 (46:35):
Absolutely, Yeah. I mean the example I just saw yesterday
was Dede. I mean that movie, like it's my favorite
movie so far, so it just I keep thinking about it.
But a similar thing, you know, it's just yeah, it
actually has something to communicate because I think my favorite
horror movie so far has been Late Night with the
Devil for just the storytelling. And I know that there
(46:57):
was AI and things like that, but you know, not
to put that off to side, but just for this.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
No, but an appropriate amount it needs to be because
it was made and those decisions were made at a
time before we really understood it and people were experimenting,
and like, yes, it would be easy enough for them
to replace it, but like then we're going back and
changing films that had been made to be something different,
(47:24):
you know. And so I think it's fine living as
a piece like a moment in time of history where
we were on the cusp of making a decision as
a society about what AI actually meant.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
Because that was right on the heels of the Hollywood
strike and it was like, yeah, they just got back
and then boom, and that's what everyone's like, Oh, this
movie's great and then But you know, but I enjoyed
that movie a lot. I thought it was intellectual. You know,
it's about grief and loss, which that seems like what
(47:56):
horror is trying to communicate right now. A lot is
just that that thought of just you know, either trauma
or lost. I also saw one of the worst movies
I've seen in a long time. This year Night Swim.
That was.
Speaker 2 (48:13):
Didn't it. I didn't even notice that was out.
Speaker 1 (48:16):
That was not good, Like I just like it reminded
me of like a two thousand and three, you know,
horror movie, like The Boogeyman. I remember that when that
one came out, it seemed like that. I was like, wow,
I didn't know we could make movies this bad still
like this, it was bad.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
Yeah, that sucks. Late Late Night with the Devil had
like and I won't ruin anything for anybody, but the
like the special effects they used at the end were
of a specific, a very specific kind of like after
effects level, you know. That really worked for me and
(48:58):
I thought, we're super cool to look at. And it
reminded me of one of my favorite movies from the
past two years, Studio six sixty six, which has very
similar like the demons and stuff in that were very
two D. But it just was like fun as hell.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
Yeah, that was so much fun. It almost seemed like
the sixties or the seventies when you would have like
the Monkeys they did like a bunch of movies too,
or like The Turtle, you know, like it was what
popular rock band at the time. Let's put them in
this like little movie. And you know, I love that,
you know, I wish more more of that, Like I
(49:37):
would love to see like System of a Down do
something like that. I think that would be hilarious. Like
Surge would just be very intellectual about it and stuff.
I don't yeah, yeah for it all right, Well, coming
towards the end, but let me put you in the
hot seat. So this has been kind of an extended
hot seat. So I'm just gonna throw a few things
out there. You're not to justify them or anything, just
(50:00):
this or that kind of questions as we end this.
So yeah, so this is the hot seat with Josh,
and we'll start in three two one. Josh, what's an
overrated horror movie in your opinion?
Speaker 2 (50:12):
And over That's hard? Oh God, you said I don't
have to qualify it. I'll go quick. You have to
tell you have to look at every film in the
lens of the year that it came out and what
was available at the time. So it's really really hard
for me to say anything in particular. But I guess
I'll just choose the Jason franchise because I don't I
(50:38):
don't get it, like I love the first two films,
and then the rest of it, no idea, and then
I love the last two films.
Speaker 1 (50:46):
Yeah, what's an underrated film in your opinion?
Speaker 2 (50:51):
Jack Brooks Monster Slayer? I not enough people know about it.
It is my personal goal in life to get people
to watch this movie.
Speaker 1 (50:59):
All right, well, you got one person to watch that.
I gotta check that out. Okay, here's here's a question
I've ever asked before. So which slasher movie cast would
you add yourself to?
Speaker 2 (51:11):
Am I a real person in that universe? Or I'm
adding myself to the cast of the movie.
Speaker 1 (51:17):
You are a real person in that universe?
Speaker 2 (51:20):
Oh crap? Does it count?
Speaker 1 (51:25):
Sure?
Speaker 2 (51:25):
Okay, yeah, I think that would be the most interesting.
Speaker 1 (51:29):
Yeah, I like that. That's a good answer. Actually terrifying,
but awesome.
Speaker 2 (51:35):
Yeah, it would be arguably the worst, but the most interesting.
Speaker 1 (51:40):
Yeah, at least you have a bunch of friends.
Speaker 2 (51:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:44):
What is your favorite Halloween special from TV?
Speaker 2 (51:50):
I guess I didn't see much when I was a kid.
I don't remember seeing any when I was a kid.
So most recently I watched Oh what's the British one?
That was like the live broadcast that everybody thought was
real and it's had a resurgence lately. It was on
Shutter the last broadcast. Is that what it's called.
Speaker 1 (52:12):
I'm not sure.
Speaker 2 (52:12):
I don't remember, but it's basically, it's like a British
news organization covering a haunting happening at somebody's house and
it just like plays out as real and it was
really really kind of fun.
Speaker 1 (52:24):
That's awesome. Yeah, is there any horror film location you
would love to visit?
Speaker 2 (52:32):
Ghost Watch? That's what it was called. Sorry, okay, ask
that question again.
Speaker 1 (52:37):
Okay, last question we'll ask you, Josh, is is there
a horror film location that you would love to visit?
Speaker 2 (52:46):
Oh? Wow, dead Air. Well, I grew up in New Jersey,
so I feel like I've been pretty close to like
the Blair Witch and the Toxic Avenger and stuff like that.
So not that, I mean, I guess I don't know.
(53:09):
This is a really hard question. Oh oh, okay, I
got it. It would be the whatever they used is
the set for the mansion for the Haunting of Hill
House with Mike Flo.
Speaker 1 (53:23):
Yeah, yeah, all right, well that's the Haunts. It's I mean,
it matches outside. All right, Well, Josh, thank you, So
much for being on Ready Retro. Please tell our listeners
where they can find all all the awesome stuff and
if there's anything upcoming that you would like to plug.
Speaker 2 (53:46):
Yeah, I use the name Haunting Season like hunting season,
but for ghosts Haunting season. On all of my platforms,
it's YouTube, it's TikTok, Instagram, letterboxed, and I now have
my movie Club, which is in my discord which you
can it's free for everybody. I also do have a
(54:07):
Patreon where I am saving up for doing some longer
form storytelling again, either in the form of podcast or
short films or YouTube. I haven't quite decided yet, but
I know what the story is and it's going to
be really, really amazing, and so links for all of
that if you just either look me up on Instagram
or TikTok. I have one link in the bio. It's
(54:28):
a link tree awesome.
Speaker 1 (54:30):
And we will put the link tree, but we'll also
put some of those links in the description of this
episode as well, So go in there click on it.
Thank you so much for being on. This was awesome,
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (54:42):
Fun.
Speaker 1 (54:43):
Yeah, all right, we'll see you next week. We're ready
to retro, are you compt
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