That's a GOOD idea - Milk & Serial

Can an indie, low-budget, found-footage film released on YouTube be… great? YES! Milk & Serial by the crew over at That’s a Bad Idea made an excellent horror movie that is a disturbing delight. Our coverage is mostly spoiler-free, too!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Welcome back to Killing Fund, where we explore the intersection
of crime and entertainment every other week. I'm Christy and
I'm Jackie and today today we are talking about the
indie YouTube movie horror movie called Milk and Cereal spelt
s E R. I A L like serial killer man.

(00:31):
I hate pranks or at least mean spirited ones.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Okay, Okay, well this hit the nose with.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
That, so yeah, for sure. So I mean this is like,
let's talk about this. Okay, did you enjoy this?

Speaker 3 (00:46):
I did.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
I enjoyed it. I did a lot. Okay, let me
tell you. I watched three horror movies over fourth of
July weekend, Wow, including this one. Okay, so I watched
Sinners because it came on HBO.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
All right.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
Then my whole family was kind of disappointed in it
because it was too long. Oh, if it had been
two thirds as long as it was, it could have
been a really good movie.

Speaker 3 (01:17):
Oh, they do that.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
So I was like, you know what movie I've seen?
If you like parts of that, let's watch a movie
that's really good. Yeah, and we watched it. Get Out. Oh.

Speaker 3 (01:28):
I love get Out.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
Get Out was awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:30):
Get Out was the best. It was so much.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
It was really really good. Yeah, and I would say
I liked this about as much as I liked to
get Out. Oh wow, I liked it much better than Sinners.
Oh yeah, and Sinners has gotten so like so much acclaim.
Everybody's been like, oh, this is such a great movie,
and there are parts of it that are really good.
There's parts of it that were like good, but it

(01:55):
was way too slow.

Speaker 3 (01:58):
I have not watched it. I definitely I'm not a
fan of the super slow either.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yeah, clearly, but get Out all of all of his work,
let's just you know, yes, all of it.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
It was so good.

Speaker 3 (02:12):
So but this movie was good, I mean.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
Right, and they did a really good job an hour
and two minutes. Yes, and it's it's good.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
It was engaging, yes, And and I kept going, I
kept wondering what was gonna happen?

Speaker 3 (02:27):
Right like it was.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
It was like, my recap is so short because I
want to spoil it, because really the less you know
going in, the better the better. Uh huh. So I'm
gonna do my best not to spoil it too much. Okay,
too much, but let's talk about the cast. Yeah, okay,
because okay, well, so milk is played by Curry Barker

(02:52):
and he's the writer, director, co producer, camera operator, and editor.
He like did everything. This is like a true indie
movie where he was like, I have this idea and
I'm going to make it happen. And he primarily makes
content for his YouTube channel called That's a Bad Idea, Okay,

(03:14):
which is where you found this weather no matter how
you found it. If you search in YouTube for milk
and cereal.

Speaker 3 (03:21):
It's gonna comes in.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
It comes from the YouTube channel That's a Bad Idea.
He makes the videos for that channel with Cooper Tomlinson,
whom he met in film school. As far as big
network shows, Curry's been in Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Dave.
Now Cooper Tomlinson is his partner and That's a Bad

(03:42):
Idea Place seven and that's primarily his thing. So they're
actually posting less since this came out last August. In
August to twenty twenty four is when it came out.
They're posting less because this got them a lot of
attention and so they're able to be working on some
larger projects, so.

Speaker 3 (04:04):
I mean, good for them.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
Yeah, And incidentally, they made another short film. It was
like an actual short film like twenty five minutes. It's
called The Chair. Oh it was so good.

Speaker 3 (04:15):
Okay, I saw I saw the recommendation for that.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
It was so good.

Speaker 3 (04:19):
I'm gonna have to go back and click.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
I mean it's so easy for twenty five minutes to
like sit there, and it was like it's a horror movie. Yeah,
it's not a found footage thing, right, but it was
really good too. I'm like, I see why this one
works because it was good.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
That's awesome.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
Yeah, ad like Torres Alvaro is Naomi and she also
did make up.

Speaker 3 (04:39):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (04:40):
She was in an episode of This is Us in
the final season. Oh so, like all these people are
like kind of working. Jonathan Cripple plays Greg the Old Man.
He was the only paid actor in the whole movie. Okay,
so he's the one that they paid. He mostly does
like imp okay, like at corporate events and stuff like that.

(05:03):
But he was also in several episodes of Winning Time
on HBO, which was about the La Lakers, and then
various stage shows. He's even worked as a puppeteer. Yeah, yeah,
so like cool stuff. You know what.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
Something about him just screams that a puppeteer. Yes, something
I don't know why, Okay, he just does.

Speaker 1 (05:25):
Yeah. And then most everybody else's like friends, Okay, Kurry
and Cooper and they all are kind of in the
same friend group, and they're doing some of the same
sorts of projects, like they tend to work with each other.

Speaker 3 (05:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:44):
I mean, you wouldn't have seen most of these people
and anything else unless you're a fan of That's a
bad idea.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
Right, Yeah, No, that makes sense because nobody looks actually
familiar to me.

Speaker 1 (05:57):
No, which I think kind of helps with the whole
found footage genre, which we're gonna talk about later. Yes, So.

Speaker 2 (06:04):
If you've writeen them somewhere else, right, right, it's it's
harder to to pull it off. So I'm going to recap,
but it's like so brief because I really don't want
to say too much.

Speaker 3 (06:16):
Okay, go for it.

Speaker 1 (06:17):
So Milk has a birthday and his roommate and YouTube
channel partner seven celebrate with a party and a prank.
The pranking is elaborate and they both go too far.

Speaker 3 (06:31):
I like it period.

Speaker 1 (06:34):
That's it. They both I can't I can't say more
than that. And it's funny because so their YouTube channel
is skits, okay, right, there's not like prank.

Speaker 3 (06:47):
It's not prank channel, right channel, Right.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
And they have different names than they do and you
know real life and every skit they have different names.
If they're named at all, it's like a thing, right, yes.
And some of them are kind of funny, and some
of it's like humor that doesn't appeal to me. But
that's fine because I'm sure I'm not their target audience.
But I mean, like this is good. Yeah, all right,

(07:13):
thoughts again, I had a lot of thoughts, but not
all of them. Can I even say? Oh well, because
I don't want it to be too spoiler.

Speaker 3 (07:21):
Oh I see, I see, I see.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
Maybe maybe we should add like a tag at the
end of this episode, be like, okay, spoiler thoughts.

Speaker 1 (07:29):
Oh well, I didn't write them down in my notes here,
so I would have to go get them. Okay, Okay,
that's fine, I've got I've got thoughts. Okay, okay. So
nothing good comes from making a deal in a white
panel man, never especially behind stores. Nope, just like, don't
don't do.

Speaker 3 (07:46):
It, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it.
They've got a bike, Nope, got my own ye candy.

Speaker 1 (07:52):
No, yeah, right, arms, I'll buy them from a legal
place whatever, thank you. So seven found an arms dealer
on the quote unquote black market and I said, it's
kind of like Craigslist. And I'm like, well, it isn't
like Craigslist, just the black market for people who don't
know how to find the actual black market.

Speaker 3 (08:12):
I mean Craigslist is, yes, yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
Because I don't know how to find the black market.

Speaker 3 (08:17):
I don't. I mean there's some websites on it I've
heard of, but I don't think.

Speaker 1 (08:20):
I don't. I don't know how to get to the
dark Web. This is not a Google search that I'm
willing to do. I'm willing to wreck my search history
for a lot for you know, poisons and murder, weapons
and all kinds of stuff. But finding the dark web
is where I draw the line.

Speaker 3 (08:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (08:39):
Yeah, but it was funny, as he said, it was
like Craigslist for the dark Web, and I'm like, I
think you just found a sketchy off brandt huh.

Speaker 1 (08:51):
I think so yeah, I think so so. For people
who are pranksters, what we see basically for a living,
like they're YouTube channel in the show, is very successful
enough that they can share an apartment, right, and they've
got like a million views on when they were very

(09:12):
excited about that video getting to a million views. I'm like,
for people who do pranks for a living, they were
really unprepared to have pranks played on them.

Speaker 3 (09:21):
I know, right, I mean you would think.

Speaker 1 (09:24):
You would think that they would be a little more skeptical.

Speaker 3 (09:27):
Yeah, but you know.

Speaker 2 (09:28):
It's kind of thing you don't You don't realize it's
happening to you.

Speaker 1 (09:32):
Yeah, because you're so used to being the one to
plan it. Yeah, that you're not looking for it coming right, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:38):
Yeah, especially from people you're with so much that you
think that maybe like, how, well, how are they planning it?

Speaker 1 (09:43):
Even from the guy in the van. Yeah, they were
not expecting that.

Speaker 3 (09:46):
Oh well, no, they did not expect that. It was
very funny.

Speaker 1 (09:49):
Yes, it was funny.

Speaker 3 (09:50):
I mean it was, yes, buddy.

Speaker 1 (09:52):
So a cranky old man who complains about the noise
of Milk's birthday party say it he like does creepy stuff,
and then he invites Milk and seven over for dinner,
And I was like, I mean, no, no, no, no, no, no,
we're not No.

Speaker 3 (10:10):
I didn't like.

Speaker 2 (10:10):
The guy from the first time he said, I have
kids next door, and I.

Speaker 3 (10:13):
Was like, I highly doubt that.

Speaker 1 (10:15):
Yeah, I mean no fence, Yeah, but do you have Yeah,
they better be grandkids.

Speaker 2 (10:22):
Grandkids maybe maybe grandkids, but maybe your kids.

Speaker 3 (10:27):
Like And also, I know he's capable, but I wouldn't.

Speaker 2 (10:30):
I wouldn't assume, uh huh that he's somebody who could
h have a relationship that would produce children. And I'm
just not I mean, I'm sorry to say, but you
know he was. He was dressed and acting in a
certain way that maybe go.

Speaker 1 (10:44):
No h but clearly there's reasons for that, right, Yeah,
I mean they do go over to his apartment, and
I noticed that the old man has a really cute
painting of a highland cow.

Speaker 3 (10:57):
Oh I didn't.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
I'm so distracted by the island cow painting over the shoulder.

Speaker 3 (11:05):
I'm gonna have to go back and look at it
to I'll.

Speaker 1 (11:08):
Go find a screenshot of it. Oh my gosh, because
it was really funny. I was like, Oh, that's so cute.
What a weird thing for this crumpy old man.

Speaker 2 (11:16):
Half ah, crumpy old man.

Speaker 1 (11:23):
So the old man tells a creepy story about how
his dad like basically abused him yeah, And this is
the first time I was like, who is this bastard?
And why is he likes to me? A question I
should have started with, yeah, but I didn't get there
until like twenty five minutes when this happened.

Speaker 2 (11:44):
Yeah for me, it really was when he said I
have kids and I was like, what, I don't think so.

Speaker 3 (11:53):
You're a little creepy. Uh huh.

Speaker 1 (11:57):
So a main character says at one point that he's
got morals and is a good person with limits, and
I'm like, didn't we just talk about this last episode?
I really did before even Yeah, but I mean literally
just last episode, Like bad people think they're good. Yeah, Oh,
he's a bad person. He thinks he's a good person.

Speaker 3 (12:17):
Thinks he's a good person because he has limits.

Speaker 1 (12:19):
Yeah, No, that didn't make you a good person.

Speaker 2 (12:22):
Nope.

Speaker 1 (12:23):
All right. And then there's a text quote unquote from
someone who can no longer text, and it's sent from
a location where that person couldn't have been. And I'm like,
do y'all not watch any crime shows? Have you never
watched a crime show? Ever? And obviously you don't have

(12:45):
a family member who lovingly cyber stalks you to know
where you're located because you would have not sent that
text or left the phone on?

Speaker 3 (12:58):
Yes, why why?

Speaker 1 (12:59):
Why the phone should have been turned on? That should
have been like job one.

Speaker 4 (13:02):
Right.

Speaker 1 (13:03):
I hope Curry's good. I hope he just likes the
like horror shot.

Speaker 2 (13:08):
He's like, okay, me, I hoped that seven and Kurt
Well Cooper seven.

Speaker 3 (13:14):
That's funny. I like that nickname. Yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
I like how Cooper and Curry are friends, right, And
I can't help a wonder what did this do to
their friendship? How freaking paranoid must you be after you
shoot something like this?

Speaker 1 (13:27):
Well, and like your roommate because that's like their real apartment,
Like that's just their real apartment. Like your roommate can
come up with this utterly twisted stuff? Does that make you?
I mean, it's like living with Stephen King. I don't
know how his wife does it.

Speaker 3 (13:45):
Well, it's not easy. He's talked about that.

Speaker 1 (13:47):
Yeah. So they made this for eight honurred bucks.

Speaker 3 (13:51):
Awesome.

Speaker 1 (13:52):
I mean, it's so cool, And most of that budget
went to hiring Jonathan Cripple, the actor, and they bought
a used camera and then sold it after they finished
the film, And we're done with it for one hundred
dollars profit, So between that and the YouTube monetization, they
were in the black pretty quickly. That's awesome, yeah, which

(14:14):
I mean, okay, you're in the black. But also, like
most people volunteer at their time.

Speaker 2 (14:20):
Right exactly exactly, and you know, yeah, which is fine.

Speaker 3 (14:24):
It is a thing. It is a thing.

Speaker 2 (14:26):
You just you know, people should volunteer because they want
to be part of the process, right, but also as creatives,
we don't want people to die of exposure.

Speaker 1 (14:34):
Right right exactly, which is why Curry Barker talked to
Variety and he did say, you know, it took them
four months to shoot this, okay, because it was friends
mostly doing the acting work, and they really worked around
everybody's availability. So yeah, you know, here we're going to

(14:56):
work on evenings and weekends and when is when are
people available, and you know, try and not it's not
going to interrupt so much. But it's a fun thing
to do. I mean, you get together and do the
fun things with your friends. You're going to do that
in your twenties, I mean, and now they get to
be in this cool movie.

Speaker 3 (15:16):
Yeah exactly.

Speaker 1 (15:17):
It wasn't released to YouTube because they couldn't find a distributor.
They actually found a distributory that was willing to work
with them, and then they like there were forms and
releases that they didn't realize that they needed to fill
out and do, and so they did all of that
and they're getting ready to try and decide where it

(15:37):
was going to be distributed, and he's I'm going to
put this on shutter whatever, and it's going to cost
people three bucks to see it. It's like I've had
this movie poster on my YouTube channel for a year.
He's like, I don't want to do that, good job.
I'm going to just release it for free and let
the ads pay for it and it'll be fine. And

(15:58):
he's really felt like to be respected, it needed to
be on shutter Hulu or Netflix or you know whatever.
And then he released it, got a lot of attention,
a lot of great feedback, and really gave him a
lot more like confidence that this is a real movie,
even if it's not quote unquote distributed through mainstream channels,

(16:23):
right right, yeah, which I mean, how more mainstream does
it get than YouTube? Really? You just don't have to pay.

Speaker 3 (16:29):
For it right on?

Speaker 4 (16:29):
It?

Speaker 2 (16:30):
Well, because they had a channel worth it, right, you know,
he had that avenue.

Speaker 1 (16:34):
Yes, right, right exactly. He already had an audience. He's
an audience that wanted to see it exactly. So I
mean that's the that's the right call, you know. Yeah,
this is actually shorter cut of the movie than they
were gonna release Smart. Yes, thank you job, he said
right before we posted on YouTube. I shaved twenty twenty

(16:55):
minutes off just to make it feel quicker.

Speaker 3 (16:57):
Yeah, good job.

Speaker 1 (16:58):
And I'm like, that's a good job. And they didn't
really cut anything out. He was like, let's just make
this bit faster. Yeah, And then I support it.

Speaker 3 (17:06):
Yes, I'm one hundred.

Speaker 1 (17:08):
After having just watched Sinners, which was too long and
needed a lot of fat trimmed out of it. I get.
I get that it was expensive to make Sinners, and
that's what they want to include as much of the
film as they can because it was expensive to make,
or they were too precious about it. I'm like, I
really appreciate you not being too precious about your Yeah.

Speaker 3 (17:30):
No, sometimes you have to.

Speaker 2 (17:31):
That's why you should give it to an editor who
does not care that it took a lot of money
to cut that scene.

Speaker 3 (17:36):
If it doesn't support the story. Get Rid of it.

Speaker 1 (17:40):
Yeah, exactly. I mean you can always put those in
a bonus something.

Speaker 3 (17:46):
Thank you. That's why those things exist.

Speaker 1 (17:48):
This is why you get people to buy your DVDs, exactly.
And then they watched the then they either love the
director's cut or they are like, yeah, much better movie
because they cut all that stuff out right.

Speaker 2 (18:03):
They appreciate how pretty it is because they no longer
have to worry about the fact that it doesn't support
the story.

Speaker 3 (18:07):
Right. That goes from movies and.

Speaker 2 (18:08):
TV shows yeap, TV shows like you know, talking to
the Bear right now?

Speaker 3 (18:12):
Yeah, oh, get it to the other bear.

Speaker 1 (18:14):
Oh, I haven't watched it. I haven't watched the four.

Speaker 3 (18:16):
Seasons cinematography orgy.

Speaker 1 (18:19):
Oh really, yes, I'm disappointed.

Speaker 3 (18:22):
Sorry, bear, I do like it. I like the story, huh.

Speaker 2 (18:27):
Like yesterday we watched one and you know, the ending
was so gratifying and I loved so much of the
story that supported it, and what didn't support it was
the first like fifteen minutes of the freaking episode.

Speaker 3 (18:38):
Really, it was like a music video of.

Speaker 2 (18:40):
Her cooking, and I was like, see, and maybe it's
just me because I don't that's not appealing to me
to watch her do that.

Speaker 3 (18:48):
But it was like my.

Speaker 2 (18:49):
Husband kind of called it out to say, it's just
it looks like a music video, like.

Speaker 3 (18:53):
It's not even and I don't know what it did
to support anything. So but it looked gorgeous. It was
so pretty. It was not wrong. It was so pretty.

Speaker 1 (19:06):
That's frustrating.

Speaker 3 (19:07):
But also watch the Bear. It's a really good show.

Speaker 1 (19:09):
Yeah, Okay, we didn't started the last episode our last
season yet we will we were. I don't have any resources.

Speaker 3 (19:17):
Uh yeah no, I mean, don't don't white.

Speaker 1 (19:19):
Fans, don't pull me in pranks, don't don't get in
white vans with sketchy men. Right, we're friends sometimes or friends.

Speaker 3 (19:32):
Also, don't never mind, I'm a good in a rabbit hole.
That's very spoiler ish. So yeah, mm hmm. So here's
how it works. Christierects her search history. Hey an essay.

Speaker 2 (19:47):
We promise it's nothing more nefarious than a podcast to
find out what's true some of the psychological motivations behind
the character's actions and real life applications that relate to
our topic. I have no idea what Christy is I
did to look up could be the same thing that
captured my curiosity or something I never thought of is
it true?

Speaker 3 (20:07):
Well no, I hope no.

Speaker 1 (20:10):
No, it's from the mind of Curry Barger, which I'm like,
that's twisted and entertaining. I hope he's okay. Yeah, So
squibs for blood as part of a prank or on
a set, Is that what those things are called?

Speaker 3 (20:26):
I think so, yes, it is.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
What a silly name. I first of all, the call
it a squib.

Speaker 3 (20:31):
There's a lot of silly names on a set.

Speaker 1 (20:36):
Yeah, there are practical usually pyrotechnics. There are like some
more rudimentary ways to do them. I don't know if
they did it, but you shouldn't look too closely at
it because it's got You've got a little piece that's
against your body so that it doesn't hurt you, and

(20:58):
then it shoots out and shoots out through a little
blood packet. This is something that they didn't show at all,
and I almost wish that they had, was that there's
some preparation that goes into the clothing to be able
for them to work, Like you need to have the
it scored a little bit on the and so they

(21:19):
just made it look like, oh, we're going to use
the squib and it's and what you use the blanks
and it'll be fine and no big deal. And you know,
there's a lot more involved and they're not cheap. They're
like up to sixty dollars each.

Speaker 2 (21:35):
So I'm like, okay, yeah, well, I mean, you know
in the in the film, they do have this prank channel.

Speaker 3 (21:42):
So my guess is that this is a problem. Yeah,
maybe four for other things.

Speaker 1 (21:46):
Yeah. Yeah. It was first used in the film industry
in nineteen forty three, but the patent for that kind
of thing there was no patents until nineteen ninety one. Wow,
they're not particularly safe. They exceed the EPA Occupational Safety
standards for lead by more than five hundred times in

(22:09):
an enclosed space. So there are some lead free alternatives,
but they're a lot more expensive. So like, oh yeah,
maybe lad, like I don't know the explosions or something, okay, yeah,
so ew yeah, just know that if somebody is like,
I'm gonna put a squib on you for this thing,

(22:31):
maybe make sure it's really good. This is really good,
and it's really good. They find an uninvited guests in
their home the morning after the party, and I think
one of them really probably should have called the police.

Speaker 3 (22:45):
Yes, please do that. Do not engage.

Speaker 1 (22:48):
Yeah, don't engage, because I mean this person had entered
the property without permission. That is absolutely by California Penal
code tresspassing, and he didn't have a legal right to
be there, which could mitigate the trespassing charges finds of

(23:10):
up to one thousand dollars. But more so, the guy
was clearly upset, and let's get him involved with assistance.
You got the old guy acting weird. Yeah, no, call
maybe call Yeah, let's if not for your own safety,

(23:31):
for his.

Speaker 3 (23:31):
Right exactly right. Yes, you're doing a great job. Not
I's falling nothing.

Speaker 1 (23:36):
I'm trying, I try and rolling hard. Is blank ammunition
illegal in California?

Speaker 2 (23:45):
I wasn't sure when he said that. I was like,
I don't know, but I don't doubt it.

Speaker 1 (23:52):
Okay, Ish, It's really complicated because so blank Ammo, which
basically sells blank ammunition, it says it's legal for adults
over the age of eighteen to possess blank ammunition for

(24:14):
whatever reason. Now, it does have to go into a
weapon that can handle it. Not all weapons ten fire right,
So if there's a semi automatic firearm, unless it has
a special adapter, it can't shoot Blanks, but Blankamo dot
Com will ship to California. However, Airgun Depot won't ship

(24:39):
to California, Greater Chicago, New York City, Washington, DC, Connecticut, Massachusetts,
Puerto Rico. Okay, so they're like, sorry, we're just not
taking the chance. And no matter where you order it from,
they can't expedite shipping because it's considered hazardous, so it's
got to go ground. So you got you got to

(25:01):
plan ahead. So I guess they weren't planning ahead. I mean,
they had kind of planned ahead because they had the
squib and you have to like do preparation for the
clothing and stuff like that, right, but they didn't plan
far enough ahead to have the.

Speaker 2 (25:16):
Still Okay, I think one of the things that happened
in the beginning, right they talk about the fact that
this is the biggest one they've kind of done, right,
And it gave me the impression, based on how they
also used the gun, that they didn't know how to
use the gun.

Speaker 3 (25:32):
And that they needed to go somewhere and actually talk.

Speaker 2 (25:34):
To somebody who was going to show them how to
do it right. And I think, but you can't buy
blank that he was right about that you can't buy
You can't buy blank cartridges just at the gun store
in California, so like you can have them, but you
can buy them, but you can't just go to a
gun store and buy them buy them.

Speaker 3 (25:55):
So if he was, I think what he needed was
somebody who was going to show them to do it.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
What he needed was to order them ahead of time
and go to the firing range and have somebody there
show him how to do it.

Speaker 3 (26:08):
Right exactly exactly.

Speaker 2 (26:10):
But I think he probably just felt like he couldn't
get it done and not maybe like he couldn't get
it done privately enough.

Speaker 3 (26:17):
To keep it quiet. Yeah, I guess, I mean I
don't know.

Speaker 1 (26:21):
Yeah, I mean they but you get a box from
blank ammunition that gets left on your doorstep that's going
to ruin exactly.

Speaker 3 (26:29):
Yes, yes, it's going to ruin the surprise what a bit?

Speaker 1 (26:33):
Is blank ammunition dangerous? It can be, Yes, yes, it
can be because it doesn't shoot a projectile, but it
does generate the muzzle flash and it's very loud, and
if there's anything inside the barrel then it will send
it out at a high velocity. So like there might

(26:55):
be wadding that keeps the propellant in place that causes
the muscle flash and so anything like that's going to
come out really fast and it can be dangerous.

Speaker 3 (27:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:05):
What the heck is a Boston digger? I don't know.
I didn't either. He's like, get a Boston digger in
two shovels.

Speaker 2 (27:13):
Yeah, I was like, what, Okay, I do know that
Boston is a brand, right, Okay, equipment? Okay, So I'm
guessing he's talking about like the same way we might
say get a John Deere Green or a get a
Oh my guess is that?

Speaker 1 (27:27):
Okay? So a Boston digger is a post hole digger,
but it's a specific type.

Speaker 3 (27:36):
Oh okay, okay, right, so they.

Speaker 1 (27:38):
Use it specifically to clean out holes that have been
created by an auger and it goes straight down without
making the sides of the top of the hole wider.
Oh so it's just a particular type. It's set up
in a particular way. It's just a post hole digger.
You stick the whole thing in and it's like tweezers

(28:01):
kind of, but for making an eight inch hole. Okay.

Speaker 3 (28:04):
I have so many more questions now, Oh, like what
why that?

Speaker 1 (28:08):
I don't know? That was my question too. I'm like,
I have no idea why he wants a post hole digger.
It seems weird. Was it just to like? But I
guess that posthole digger, the Boston one is particularly good
at small rocks and loose sandy dirt. So if the

(28:30):
character that sent the other character in to go buy
this stuff knew where they were going to afterwards dispose
of things, then maybe he knew he needed loose something
that would move loose sand. Right, But I don't know
why it needs to be.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
It also doesn't look near suspicious, okay, right, right, Like
two dudes get a post hole, like.

Speaker 1 (28:54):
Yeah, getting a post hole digger and a couple of Yeah,
they're putting up a fence, right, it.

Speaker 2 (28:59):
Looks like offence, right, but it'll give you enough, like
you know, it's kind of like punching the holes preferation, sure,
so that then when you dig it.

Speaker 3 (29:08):
Out, it's a little easier.

Speaker 1 (29:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (29:10):
Maybe that just shows you how smart that person is.

Speaker 2 (29:13):
I was with that person the second they said that.

Speaker 3 (29:16):
That would be your clue. Red flag guy, the red
flag guy you need to get away.

Speaker 1 (29:21):
Yeah, there are a lot of red flags, Okay. Would
a body start to smell bad. So soon after death.

Speaker 2 (29:31):
It can for different reasons, not necessarily just decompactis posing
right because.

Speaker 1 (29:36):
He kind of said it, it's starting to smell in here,
and I'm like, well, that's is it because the body
released something. But it wouldn't have been decompositions smell not
quite yet. No, No, because their first few days after death,
this was minutes if not ours. No, it was an evacuation, right,

(29:58):
I think. So, yeah, there pretty fresh for the first
two three days. They don't start to smell really bad,
and then they smell really bad for a while until
they like basically become dried out. How Ley is home
depot open?

Speaker 3 (30:13):
I I thought like nine or ten?

Speaker 1 (30:17):
Uh huh myself, but I was like, I thought it
was like seven or eight, And I'm like, is dark
and it has been dark for a while. No, home
depot almost everywhere is open from six am to ten pm.
Oh wow, Okay, which is like a long time to
be open.

Speaker 3 (30:34):
It is, but a contractors use, yes, that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (30:38):
Well, it made sense to me that they would want
to open early, not so much late. But I guess
late is when you get the the people on their
way home from work or right, you know, I've got
something work.

Speaker 3 (30:51):
Right, or you know, end of the day, now you
know what you need to finish the job, you pick
it up, so you're pack up for in the morning,
you know.

Speaker 2 (30:58):
Right, avoid the lumber rushy morning.

Speaker 3 (31:02):
Yeah, you know I could see that.

Speaker 1 (31:04):
Yeah, yeah. Can a police officer give you a citation
for parking in a disability parking spot even if you
remain in your vehicle?

Speaker 2 (31:11):
Actually that surprised me. I didn't think that that was possible.
So I don't know if they just got it wrong
or if I just didn't know it was possible.

Speaker 1 (31:20):
Well, according to Shao's Law, which is a defense attorney
in California, that if you don't have a license plate
or a handicap placard, even if you stay in your
vehicle and you pull into the handicapped spot, they can
give you a citation because you're taking that spot that
somebody might need. Right, So it's a civil infraction. But

(31:46):
the minimum ticket is two hundred and fifty dollars and
the most you can be charged is a thousand. But yes,
I was like, all right, you get a ticket for that.
Maybe just don't go sit in that spot though it
was late. Yeah, I'm like that's it. That's a complicant
to fill a quota. But okay. Also yeah, because he

(32:08):
literally said, sorry, sir, i'll move. An officer was like, no,
I'm signing you. And I'm like, oh, and now you're
this is pegged. They know you were here, even if
you paid cash inside. Now they have your.

Speaker 3 (32:23):
It was again super intentional.

Speaker 1 (32:26):
Oh you think so backup? Oh, okay, if if.

Speaker 3 (32:30):
The murderer huh could not do what he wanted to do,
uh huh trying to do this?

Speaker 1 (32:38):
Okay, I spoilery and I'll edit it.

Speaker 3 (32:41):
Okay, it spoilery, all.

Speaker 2 (32:42):
Okay, if if he couldn't convince the target to kill himself,
you can at least pin them this murder on him.

Speaker 1 (32:50):
Oh you're right, you're right. Yeah, I got it.

Speaker 3 (32:55):
That was my thought.

Speaker 1 (32:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (32:58):
Would you be lethargic after two day of no food
or water?

Speaker 1 (33:01):
Yeah? Like you would. I mean every person is different.
And she was like, a you know, thin young person
without water makes the difference than without food. She's a
little more lethargic maybe than I would expect. Yeah, but
it's so individualized it's hard to tell. So if you're

(33:25):
going to do fasting, yeah, drink water. Drink water, because
you can go three to four months living on just
as long as you have adequate hydration, depending on who
you are and how much body fat you have and
stuff like that, you could you can live a while.
But if you don't have any hydration, that's going to

(33:46):
contribute to it more. And they had been drinking before
she went missing, so shoot, that dehydrate you as well,
So maybe it would be I would be surprised she
was quite that lethargic. Yeah, that quickly.

Speaker 2 (34:03):
But so wait, you said three to four months, yeah,
depending on like up to like for a person.

Speaker 3 (34:09):
I always thought like a week, two weeks, uh.

Speaker 1 (34:12):
Uh uh wow, No, like a week seven to fourteen
days is when if you have no food or water,
where you would perish from right that entire if you're
drinking water. But if you're drinking water, depending on your
physical condition beforehand, how much reserves and stuff you had,
you could go months. My gosh, okay, before you perish,

(34:35):
before you starve to death. Okay, yeah, Now, I mean
she did seem lethargic, because she also seemed despondent. That's
also fair, and so I think maybe some of it
was just a immediately like a learned helplessness in the
moment that she had been chained up, and yeah it
wasn't God be great?

Speaker 3 (34:52):
Yeah, yeah, but it's a bad situation all around.

Speaker 1 (34:56):
Can you get camera glasses that uh, live stream video.

Speaker 2 (35:02):
Okay for a lot of money? I believe you can,
but I don't. I mean, I was like them some
like smart glasses, like Amazon glass or like. I don't,
but I know that it's easy to buy classes that
have like a camera, but to live stream it, I
don't know.

Speaker 3 (35:20):
I guess you'd have to pay a lot of money.

Speaker 1 (35:22):
They weren't actually all that expensive. A few dollars, yes,
and yes they connect to your phone and then will
live stream from there from an app.

Speaker 2 (35:35):
I mean, I guess it makes sense, but I would
I feel like it would be very.

Speaker 1 (35:38):
Noticeable, you would think, But they basically, I mean they
look like the Wow, the glasses he was wearing, they're
you know, big frames, right, but the you know those
are kind of in style.

Speaker 3 (35:49):
Yeah, if you can pull it on and yeah.

Speaker 1 (35:51):
So I was like, that's pretty impressive. It must have
had it from something else because that wasn't part of
their eight hundred dollars budget.

Speaker 3 (35:59):
I mean, they must I must have.

Speaker 1 (36:04):
All of the sources that we use to inform our
discussion here on Killer Fun Podcast can be found on
our social media. Join us on Facebook at Killer Fun Podcast,
exploring the intersection of crime and entertainment. You can find
us on Twitter at Killer Funpod, or you can send
us an email at Killerfunpodcast at gmail dot com, and

(36:25):
I'd be happy to share a link to whatever information
you're looking for. We love to hear from you. You
might learn a little something too. Psychology break, we're going
to talk about pranks, okay, because yeah, you know from
the beginning that their YouTube channel is pranks, right, and

(36:48):
so it's not it's not going to be too spoilery
to talk about how everybody feels about that.

Speaker 3 (36:54):
Yeah, that's a plan, uh huh.

Speaker 1 (36:56):
So April Fool's Day of two thousand and eight, The
New York Times posted an article about the purpose of pranks.
We often hear about them in the context of harassment, right,
like when we think about pranks, but they're you know,
practical jokes are basically pranks, but they see they're a

(37:19):
little less damaging, right, And anthropologists found that they're really
a really important part of bringing somebody into your social
circle can help within a social circle to if somebody
thinks too much of themselves, it might knock them down

(37:40):
a peg or two without being actually injuring, right, right,
So they do have a purpose. So good prank in
the end is like a simulation of a crisis. It's
not actually a crisis, it's just kind of a simulation
of one and doesn't go too far. And humor is

(38:03):
generally good for us. It's kind of a way of
play fighting, and when you can joke with somebody, it
tends to strengthen relationships and kind of give an insider status.
So like you're the meanest the people you love, right
kind of, but also like you know them well enough

(38:26):
that you can tailor this joke to be.

Speaker 3 (38:29):
Okay, yes, and you should.

Speaker 2 (38:32):
Right, we can because we care, right, That's what we
always said growing up.

Speaker 3 (38:36):
We can't because we care. And then, but it also.

Speaker 2 (38:38):
Makes it very clear when somebody makes a joke that's
too far two pointed below the belt, you.

Speaker 3 (38:43):
Speak and it's it's telling right a little bit.

Speaker 1 (38:47):
Yeah, this was interesting. In psychoanalysis, motivations for the impulse
to prank one's own family or friends has been described
as a subtle form of the desire to do bad
things to the very people one claim to care for.
But if somebody tells you to stop, right stop, if.

Speaker 3 (39:07):
Somebody tells you it's too her full right except to that.

Speaker 1 (39:10):
Right and yes, and don't do it going forward, right right.

Speaker 3 (39:14):
Yeah, it's funny because I can't help but bring up
a Golden Girls episode. There's an entire episode of this.

Speaker 2 (39:22):
I mean, it doesn't turn to yeah, the real murder,
but there is there is a death.

Speaker 3 (39:28):
Oh, and it's a whole thing.

Speaker 2 (39:30):
There's a whole episode where Dorothy's friend from high school
comes back and they they are pranksters, they practical jokes,
and so while she was there, her friend starts to
plan the biggest practical joke ever. And then of course
Dorothy was like figured it out right and then got
it out of her husband that that's what was happening
and planned that what she lovingly called this topper.

Speaker 3 (39:53):
Oh so what what milk did was a topper? Yes
kind of, yeah, exactly, it was a little pre planned.
But uh, I was like.

Speaker 2 (40:02):
Oh my gosh, there's an entire Golder Girls episode about
this where somebody like.

Speaker 1 (40:07):
You find the thing and then you and then you
like one up it.

Speaker 2 (40:11):
Yeah, you one up it, this little topper and it
was because somebody faked their death. Very funny, yes, but
then the girls were so mad about it because they
weren't involved in any of it. Yeah, and so they
ended up playing a little joke on anyway. Very funny, Yeah,
whole episode not no murder.

Speaker 1 (40:29):
Yeah, okay, that's good. We like that. It does have
a psychological impact, even if it's not very harmful, right,
And you have to really be considerate of the recipient,
the person on the receiving end of the prank, because
you know some people don't receive them. Well, what may

(40:50):
be really funny, the one person's going to be deeply
upsetting to somebody else. And like, I think about my
own kids, and I'm like, oh, I can play a
prank on my older kid, not my younger kid, because
they just have different personalities and the older kid would
find it funny as long as it wasn't too mean.
We told my older kid, we had him convinced on

(41:13):
April Fool's Day that when he was about seven or eight,
that we had a flamethrower for protection of the house,
that guns were too dangerous, but we had a flamethrower.
But of course he didn't know where it was because
he shouldn't be touching it, So why would we even

(41:35):
tell him that it was in the house is hidden
and not or anywhere he could find it. And he
thought it was the funniest thing when we told him
at the end of the day. The little one, no,
that would have been, like you, why I get that
for Santa Claus, you lied to me. I'm like, we

(41:57):
gave you a little bit of magic coming on, Yeah,
I lie to you. I gave you fun.

Speaker 3 (42:03):
Yeah, lie, Santa Claus is real. I know it was me.

Speaker 1 (42:08):
Yeah, exactly me. I'm Santa Claus. Yes, I am the
magic in the workplace. Sometimes little pranks and things can
foster camaraderie and lighten the mood. And but you had
to be careful not to cross professional moun trees. And
particularly with kids you in a home environment, you need

(42:31):
to be very careful about what kind of pranks you
plan them because they don't have the intellect yet to
maybe understand or the emotional development, and you really do
have to consider what they might be going through. So
don't do something mean to somebody who can't take it.
I can see why these guys went a little further

(42:54):
because they had a prank channel, right, So that's part
of it. Yeah, But also, oh no, it's not hard
to take pranks too far because emotions are very forceful.
A crank to this article and medium and like just
playing with them, playing with people's emotions, Like you don't

(43:17):
think about pranks is that it's playing with somebody's emotions.
But that's exactly what you're doing.

Speaker 3 (43:21):
Well, yeah, that is exactly.

Speaker 1 (43:23):
It's exactly what you're doing. So you have to be
really careful about that. And you don't want to prey
on like the unconditional love that you have in your family,
if you if you exploit that for a joke, that's
that's mean.

Speaker 2 (43:39):
Yeah right, That's why all joking has to have emotional
maturity behind it, uh huh, because without it, it's either
something you that you are it's unconsciously maybe a little
too passive aggressive, or you can just take it too far,
or it could be a defense mechanism.

Speaker 1 (43:59):
You.

Speaker 2 (44:01):
Know, and high Chandler, high Chandler, right, and you know,
and that can go too far if it's if it's
not self deprecating, if you turn it outwards to make
yourself feel better. That can hurt other people around you, right, right,
But so like humor in general already, it has to
be a level of emotional intelligence to land properly.

Speaker 1 (44:22):
Right.

Speaker 2 (44:22):
But I think practical jokes and pranks, I think they
go too far because it's fun to plan something.

Speaker 1 (44:27):
Yes, it's almost the planning like.

Speaker 2 (44:29):
Ooh this is smart, Oh, this is smart, and then
it's like before you know it, it's like a disaster. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (44:35):
Well, and it's too far because you were there for
all the planning, so you like understand, yes, what went
into it. And yet so it can be easy to
take it too far. Yeah, it can be easy for
it to go too far because there's social media pressure.
So some of these pranks go viral, and so you

(44:58):
want to do the big thing, I'll make it go
viral and you forget that there's like a literal person
that you're doing this too, who didn't agree to it.
And it's okay if you're upset by a prank that's
mean spirited and goes too far. So Psychology Today had
an article from twenty twenty two. Pranks may give the

(45:20):
perpetrator a feeling of power and control, ding ding Ding.
We see this with both pranksters in this movie, that
it's really what they're doing. They're trying to find a
way to have the power in the relationship. If you're
a victim of a prank, a victim the recipient of

(45:40):
a prank, you really do have the right to be upset,
even if you don't feel like you do, because you
can feel like, oh, it was just for fun, it
was just it was just to make this silly video,
and they kind of gaslight you into you can't be
upset by this because it was only a joke. Yeah,
that's the problem. And no, you're allowed to say no,

(46:02):
that's too far. Yeah, or no, I don't want that
on the internet. I don't care if it's going to
go viral. That's embarrassing to me, or that's upsetting to me,
or I don't want to come across it on my
for you page or whatever, you know, inadvertently because somebody
thought it was funny and stitched it or whatever.

Speaker 3 (46:18):
Right, Like, yeah, no, you get to say, you get
to say.

Speaker 1 (46:22):
Yeah, and you're that's totally valid for you to say,
I'm uncomfortable, I'm humiliated, even if that's not what you intended.
That's how I feel about it. You're allowed to set
those boundaries for yourself. So real life. So the arms
dealer said he made a gun look fake by putting

(46:44):
an orange tip on it, and that came about because
of laser tag.

Speaker 2 (46:49):
Oh yeah, well, I mean, and I mean I remember
cap guns though having orange chips for a long time.

Speaker 1 (46:55):
So you yeah, So.

Speaker 3 (46:57):
You're saying like laser tag was a begetting.

Speaker 1 (46:59):
Of it, like the real impetus of it. Laser tag
got really popular in the late eighties, okay, right, and
people were they would go and play laser tag. But
then you could buy like laser tag kits and go
and play. And so there were a number of kids
who were going to like schools after dark and playing

(47:22):
laser tag in the outside on the grounds, right, And
because they were kids, anybody who was there probably wasn't
that worried about it. Like in the specific example that
they give, the custodian saw them and was like, whatever,
they're just playing. It's fine, they're kids. But somebody saw

(47:42):
kids running around with god what looked like guns on
school grounds and called the police. While there, a kid
runs through in between two buildings and he's got his
laser tag gun, which looks like a real gun, and
points it at a shadow of a figure that he sees. Well,

(48:04):
that figure is the police who are responding to this.
All they see is somebody with a gun pointed out
them like an older teenager. Okay, right, so not like
a little kid, but like somebody who might appear, particularly
in the dark, like an adult. And they pointed the gun.
They get shot. The kid gets shot, he stumbles back,

(48:27):
doesn't understand what's happening, doesn't drop the gun right away.
They shoot him again, and the kid dies on the
way to the hospital. And they only realized it wasn't
a real gun because he dropped it and it broke
open and you could see the batteries in it.

Speaker 3 (48:40):
Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (48:41):
Yeah, so it's terrible. And it was lots and lots
of these kinds of situations where the guns looked too
real and they weren't able to determine until they were
up close. Like they had an expert come in and
he was like, oh, well, this one's, you know, a

(49:01):
toy gun. But it's a good thing I had my
reading glasses on, because if I hadn't been able to
read Daisy on it, I wouldn't have known it was. Yeah,
I would have thought it was a real gun because
they were too realistic. It was in the like nineteen
ninety one.

Speaker 3 (49:17):
That's so interesting.

Speaker 2 (49:18):
Did those kids have Were they wearing a vest, you know,
like the vest to catch the laser to know that.

Speaker 1 (49:23):
You write shot? I think they were on hats, oh,
instead of on the right. And I it was like
they did have a sensor, yeah, to get caught, but
it wasn't as obvious. And if you didn't know what
was going on, your police officer, you're going to shoot
first and asked questions later when you think somebody's got

(49:45):
a gun pointed at you, which shouldn't be the case.
But often, as I know, you don't want to get shot.
We don't want them to get shot.

Speaker 2 (49:53):
But also right, well, and it's not I mean, I
struggle with it because I know that the shoe.

Speaker 3 (49:59):
Is not all always about self defense.

Speaker 2 (50:01):
It's about defending who else is around and neutralizing a
potential threat just as much as it is might be
about self defense.

Speaker 3 (50:09):
Right, So it's hard. Yeah, well that makes sense. Yeah,
so makes sense.

Speaker 1 (50:13):
They put the tip on it, and now it's a
thing that has to be done, and it makes it
safer for everybody.

Speaker 3 (50:19):
It does. So my BB gun does not have one.

Speaker 1 (50:21):
Yeah, that's because Yeah, I think it was nineteen ninety two.
Actually I said nineteen ninety one. I think it was
nineteen ninety two when they started requiring those. So if
you got it, maybe yeah, you were like maybe on
the cusp.

Speaker 2 (50:33):
Maybe on the cusp, or maybe I don't yeah, maybe yeah,
or maybe they just didn't follow the law.

Speaker 1 (50:38):
Oh, I don't know. There aren't a standard set of
rules governing the way firearms are handled on movie sets
in the US. There isn't got regulation on guns on
movie sets at all, but there is a list of
suggested rules published by the Industry Wide Labor Management Safety Committee.

(51:03):
Typically those are what's followed, and it's no that blanks
can kill. Don't point a firearm, whether regardless of whether
you think it's loaded or not, at anyone. Don't put
your finger on the trigger unless you're willing to shoot,
or unless you're ready to shoot. You should have a
thorough briefing if there are firearms on the set. We

(51:26):
actually did a video at my house for a firearms
safety campaign, and we had a police officer come out
and do a like a safety briefing. I mean literally,
there was no ammunition for the weapon on our property
at all. It was completely unloaded and nobody touched it.

(51:47):
Like literally nobody touched it except for the police officer.
He put it in one spot and then it was filmed. Yeah,
and we had a safety briefing like.

Speaker 2 (51:56):
Yeah, no, I mean there's an industry standard for how
this is wrong and you're and you're you have a
person who is the weapons person and they are responsible
for everything and that's the way it should be and
that Yeah, there are industry standards for this, and we
followed them on on.

Speaker 3 (52:15):
Unlikely can and others. So I mean it's true, you
just yeah, you have to follow them.

Speaker 1 (52:21):
Yeah, but there's no regulations. And that's how Alec Baldwin
got in trouble in twenty twenty one, is there was
he was filming a movie called Rust. Evidently the weapon
was loaded what not with blanks and that he didn't

(52:41):
know that. So I don't know, it's very confusing as
to like.

Speaker 3 (52:47):
The story is not well, it's not clear.

Speaker 1 (52:51):
No, it's not clear, but it does seem like Alec
Baldwin really didn't know that the weapon was loaded, and
you know, maybe some changes need to take place as
far as like what's allowed on sets or whatever. But
it took two different judges to dismiss the charges against
him before it actually stuck. He's not going to be

(53:12):
tried again.

Speaker 2 (53:13):
But like it's scary, yeah, I mean, I know there's
no like regulations like particularly, I mean regular laws apply, yeah, right,
regular laws, and there's industry regulations.

Speaker 3 (53:25):
Right right, So you know, there's not law regulations.

Speaker 2 (53:29):
There's not a set of laws, but there are industry regulations.
Then there's policies for you know, studio, and then there's
weapons policies per set based on what you have, because
you can have a lot of weapons, right different, right,
I mean they also had a knife in this movie.
Uh right, there's regulations for this as well. So I mean,

(53:52):
if you're going to have anything like that, there's regulations,
and you're always going to find people who are just
going to not follow them.

Speaker 1 (53:57):
Right exactly.

Speaker 3 (53:59):
From you know, I mean people have here.

Speaker 1 (54:01):
Follow laws either. That doesn't mean we shouldn't have laws.

Speaker 2 (54:05):
No, no, but yeah, I think it's hard because I
mean I feel like the laws are pretty clear about
the use of guns, and so I feel like that
applies on every set, sure, you know exactly, but also
follow the regulations in industry standards, right, that's why they're there,
you know. And if you don't, though you can't, there

(54:25):
are laws about safety and worker safety and worker protection.
So those laws apply, and by extension, that goes for
anything dangerous on a set, stunt or anything like that.
Like in Georgia there was a set where there was
individuals killed because they were basically on a railroad track
and they weren't following standards. They weren't following and so

(54:47):
there was negligent homicide, right, because that's the law that's
applied there.

Speaker 4 (54:53):
You know.

Speaker 3 (54:53):
It's so sad.

Speaker 1 (54:54):
So it is sad. Nobody's trying to yuck. You're young.
We just want you to be safe, right. Yeah. So
a character thought he was the cleverest serial killer because
he manipulated someone into killing someone else, and as so

(55:14):
often the case, mister serial killer, you aren't as special
as you'd think you are.

Speaker 3 (55:20):
You are not the OG.

Speaker 1 (55:22):
So immediately I was like, well, Charles Manson, yeah basically
did this. His cult members committed at least nine murders
and he wasn't a part of any of them physically.
The prosecution contended that even though he didn't directly order

(55:43):
the murders, his ideology made it an overt act of conspiracy. So, okay,
Charles Manson way back in the early seventies, sixties, early seventies, Yeah,
he did it before you.

Speaker 2 (55:57):
So what about manipulating someone into killing themselves?

Speaker 3 (56:01):
Hmmm, because that was his endgame?

Speaker 1 (56:04):
Right? Oh?

Speaker 3 (56:05):
Spoilers, spoilers, spoilers.

Speaker 1 (56:08):
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, there's been like conspiracy
where like a girlfriend told her boyfriend that he should
harm himself and then he did it. And I can't
remember if she was convicted or not. I think she would, I.

Speaker 2 (56:25):
Think so if I remember correctly. There was one where
he was manipulated by the girlfriend to kill her parents okay,
and her brother, and she killed her other sister or something,
and then she kind of manipulated him to take the
fall by killing himself.

Speaker 1 (56:43):
Uh huh huh.

Speaker 3 (56:45):
I vaguely remember that.

Speaker 2 (56:46):
I don't know for sure if she really manipulated him
to actually hurting himself huh, or actually he just chose
to right because of the situation.

Speaker 1 (56:56):
I don't know. I didn't look that up. But Charles
Manson wasn't the only one either. In the seventies, there
was Dean Coral who was called the Candy Man because
his family had owned a candy factory near Houston and
gave free candy out to kids. He killed a minimum

(57:17):
of twenty nine teenage boys between nineteen seventy and nineteen
seventy three, and he had a couple of teenage accomplices
that he had manipulated into helping him. Now, right, like,
can you manipulate somebody into doing that kind of thing?
They were willing participants, So yes, they were manipulated because

(57:38):
of their age. They were young, but also maybe they
had a little bit of propensity. And the victim in
milk and cereal really did not know what was happening. No,
he was.

Speaker 2 (57:49):
Literally gas lit into a situation and pranked into it.

Speaker 1 (57:55):
Right, So that I mean that was wild, right, I
mean it was smart. Yeah, he's not the smartest serial
killer ever. Well, but he wanted to be special. Somebody
needed to hug him when he was a kid. I
think found footage films really kind of had to have
equipment readily available for it to become a large genre, right, Like,

(58:20):
until people had like home video cameras, there wasn't there
wasn't a lot of found footage stuff you could do.
I mean, it wasn't the genre wasn't going to explode
because it wasn't available enough.

Speaker 3 (58:34):
Right, There wasn't that thing that existed, right.

Speaker 1 (58:37):
It's most commonly used in horror films, and it's you know,
the idea that there's a surviving record of events and
now the participants are missing or dead. Right. But it
actually has its roots kind of in novels like finding
a manuscript or letters. It's called and a pistolary novel

(59:02):
where you have like the letters from both signs back
and forth. It's good. That's kind of the idea of screwtap,
right exactly. Or there was one.

Speaker 3 (59:11):
There's a romantic one, Yes, there is one.

Speaker 2 (59:13):
What my the Pilot. The pilot is a pilot. It's
a warm warf story.

Speaker 1 (59:19):
I don't remember the pilot's wife, something like that, something
like that. I don't know. To drop it in the comments.
Tell me what my favorite is. There's one called The
Ship of Theseus and it's the coolest book because it
was a novel. And then there's another story written in
the in the margins of two people reading the story

(59:41):
and passing the book back and forth.

Speaker 3 (59:43):
I love that. I need to read that.

Speaker 1 (59:45):
Why I don't know, but I'll send it home with
you because it's so good.

Speaker 3 (59:49):
I need to read that.

Speaker 1 (59:50):
Both stories are really good. In filmmaking, typically the cult
horror feature called Hannibal Hall from nineteen eighty is like
the first example of found footage, but there were a
couple of films before that. So there was an art

(01:00:11):
house film called The Connection from nineteen sixty one that
kind of started this. And then there was a movie
called The Other Side of the Wind and it was
directed by Orson Wells and it was made in the
early seventies, but it didn't get released until twenty eighteen.
Oh wow, So it was kind of interesting, like there's this,

(01:00:32):
like there's some precursors to it. And then of course
the Blair Witch Project in nineteen ninety nine is the
one that really like, this is something that everybody knows about.
It felt fresh and new, even though it was like
twenty almost twenty years old as a genre by then,
but it wasn't widely done.

Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
And that was the first widely distributed right movie theater right, yes,
that got.

Speaker 3 (01:01:00):
Thus they wouldn't say whether it was real or not.

Speaker 1 (01:01:02):
Hot, right, exactly exactly, And you know it's popular because
it's low cost. You can make it look amateurish because
that's literally part of the story, so it's a lower
barrier to entry way of making a film.

Speaker 3 (01:01:20):
I love the way they did it because the twists
of that.

Speaker 2 (01:01:23):
They are content creators, right, So it's found footage because
you're watching what they filmed. Uh, But it doesn't feel
like literally somebody else found this and discovering the story
after the fact.

Speaker 3 (01:01:38):
It feels very live and yet.

Speaker 2 (01:01:41):
Also yeah, the fact, and so there's this very weird
like wow, it feels this is content creation, like they're
content creators.

Speaker 3 (01:01:49):
That's what they're doing.

Speaker 2 (01:01:51):
So they can talk to the camera, right, and they
can tell you all the things that's it, and it
felt natural.

Speaker 1 (01:01:56):
It didn't feel forced for them to look at the
camera and talk about it. Fand footage, as I mentioned,
does lend itself to horror. And of course we've already
mentioned the Blair Witch Project, which was huge and one
of those I do have to say, I really appreciated
that this was a little less shaky. Oh gosh, yes,

(01:02:19):
because I couldn't watch the Blair Witch Project in the
movie theater. Yeah, it was real because it was it
was rough. Even just watching it home, I needed to
be able to like look away and have something else
to focus on for a sec because it was so shaky.
But you know, there's a lot of things that have
changed since then. Now we've got phones with stabilization, and

(01:02:40):
you know, some of it was filmed on that it
was filmed on a camera, but also some of it's
filmed on phones. It's very clear, and they did a
good job of they were capturing this because as part
of the preying, right, and so they'd set their phone
down and it wouldn't move for a whole So I
really appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:57):
I did too, because the shaky cam thing was an intentional,
right choice right in Blair Witch and everything else, because
they wanted to give you the impression that it was
literally they were running through the woods just holding the
camera happened to be running, right, And it's kind of
like that. It's like, yes, you're right, you should do that,
but also a reminder people are watching this, so yeah,

(01:03:18):
you know, it takes a little less, you know, and
then you're like the born identity where the shaky cam
thing HU gave it that live look, and you're also
kind of like, don't I don't need that to suspend
my disbelief.

Speaker 3 (01:03:29):
Just show me the movie, right. I have a little
with the shaky cam yea too.

Speaker 2 (01:03:33):
I'm not a super fan, but I thought they use
it very appropriately.

Speaker 1 (01:03:37):
Huh, that's super fair. Other notable ones not I hadn't
heard of all of these, but Late Night with the
Devil came out in twenty twenty three, and it's like
a failing talk show and they have like a special
on Halloween night where there's people involved with the supernatural.

(01:03:57):
So it's kind of a found footage because it's like
supposed to be live but it's on a set. But yeah,
and you know, they this girl claims to be obsessed
and oh, by the way, yeah, she's telling the truth.
Things go from there. And then there's one called I
don't know exactly how they name it. I think it's

(01:04:20):
called record, but it's like bracket dot r C bracket,
so it's like the record button, right, And it's a
found footage zombie horror movie. Yeah, so I'm like, oh, well,
that's kind of fun. That's a nice way to do it.
But not all found footage movies are horror. There's one

(01:04:41):
called Searching from twenty eighteen, and they use like webcams
and phone cams to kind of they're looking for a
missing girl. That one. I haven't seen it, but I
think it would pull me out because some of the
actors in it are famous. Oh yeah, John Cho and
Debra Messing are in it. This one I thought sounded fun.

(01:05:04):
Project X three teenagers decided to throw a high school
party that will make them popular. I'm like, oh, yeah,
everybody had phones. They were just it was twenty twelve,
so people were just starting to be able to have
video on their phones, right, and so yeah, okay, yeah,
people are gonna do that. And then there was one
called District nine, which was about an alien refugee camp.

Speaker 3 (01:05:28):
Yes, I've seen that, have you?

Speaker 1 (01:05:29):
Was it good?

Speaker 3 (01:05:30):
When did I see that? I saw that at some point.

Speaker 1 (01:05:33):
It's two thousand and nine, so it's I've seen that. Okay. Well,
it's like only found footage adjacent, Like it starts with
Found Edge and then it moves to racial. I've watched that, Okay,
I don't. It was a whole classic. People loved it
and really wanted a sequel to it.

Speaker 2 (01:05:51):
Yeah, okay, I feel like yes, okay, I feel like,
yes I was.

Speaker 3 (01:05:56):
I did watch that. I might have watched it way
after Okay, right, I assume, but like I don't remember.
Oh interesting, yeah yeah yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:06:05):
So yeah, my son made a little found footage Oh
oh fun.

Speaker 3 (01:06:11):
I bet that was fun. Yeah, he was kind of
it was horror. You know, he's made a couple of
horror flicks like that. But yeah, it was.

Speaker 2 (01:06:19):
It was a found footage adjacent kind of thing, and yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:06:24):
It was good. It was really cool.

Speaker 1 (01:06:26):
Yeah. On a lighter note, Okay, have you ever killed
an animal? Is a dark question to ask while you're playing.
Never have I ever? How about some still crimy ones? Okay,
that are also fun.

Speaker 3 (01:06:43):
Let's triadi Yeah yeah, lets.

Speaker 1 (01:06:45):
You know, let's identify the serial killer in the room.
Never have I ever stolen something from a restaurant like
a spoon or a mug? Had a crush on a
teacher professor? Okay, it's fine if you have the crush.
It's not fine if they reciprocate. Yeah, not if you're

(01:07:09):
under eighteen, dined and dashed, used a fake ideah, broken
the law in general, gone to court? Oh all right,
those are There's like this article from Camille Styles has
like two hundred and fifty questions. Never have I ever
If you're feeling not inspired to ask your own questions,

(01:07:32):
there's lots of but I picked out the criming ones.

Speaker 3 (01:07:34):
Yes, I think I would need a decor cards. I
would not be able to think of a question. I
would need a.

Speaker 2 (01:07:40):
Decker cards and then everybody would just have to answer
the deck of the card because if you put me
on the spot to ask a question, I would be.

Speaker 1 (01:07:45):
Like, I don't know, I don't know, what's that? What?
Never have I ever worn shoes that were too big?

Speaker 4 (01:07:55):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:07:55):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:07:56):
I mean exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:07:57):
It would become some thing.

Speaker 3 (01:07:58):
But yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:08:01):
Next up, producer Jennifer love Hewitt love Her has a
show that's on Investigation Discovery or HBO. It airs both places, okay,
called A Killer among Friends, and it looks, I think,
a different case every episode. It's pretty new, So we're

(01:08:24):
just gonna talk about the first episode, which I don't
even know what it's about, but it looked interesting and
it's about when friendships go awry. Yeah, a little like
Milk and Cereal A little bit, A little bit. That
was a movie, by the way, A Killer among Friends, Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:08:41):
Ninety two.

Speaker 1 (01:08:42):
Yeah, so I did see that because I had a
hard time finding the trailer.

Speaker 2 (01:08:46):
Yeah, for the show, but it looks like if one
of the episodes actually follows that story. Oh okay, so anyway,
it'll be a very interesting yeah thing, Yeah, excellent.

Speaker 1 (01:08:58):
Whatever. We like the true crime and the documentaries and
the things, and it seems like people who were involved
are involved in this. Therefore we get our buy in.
That is important to us here. Rate and review wherever
you get your shows does help us get found. Tell
a friend, it's more fun when you can listen with

(01:09:19):
a friend. Until next time, Be safe, be kind, and
wash your hands.