The Skeptical Help Bar - Erik Kristopher Myers - Skeptical Help Bar with Kenny Biddle - Paranormal/Skeptical

Episode Transcript
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(00:26):
What's up people, It's Friday night. You know what that means. We
drank and we talk about paranormal spookyshit from a skeptical point of view mine
anyway, tonight is gonna be fun. I am pumped, I am excited.
I am I am ecstatic about whatwe're gonna talk about tonight and with

(00:46):
whom. So before I get tothat, let me go with the rules.
Because we are broadcasting live on myFacebook pages. We are also broadcasting
on w lf A dash dB Radionetwork, so I got those plugs out
and I want to go for therules. The rules are simple, just
in case you are listening on thepodcast version of this or if this is

(01:07):
the first time that you've come tothis show. So the rules three of
them. Basic ones. Rule numberone is that this show is open to
paranormal questions, your paranormal questions,and in return, I give you my
skeptical opinion. It's not always right, but at least it's a start,
and it's a start of a discussion, which leads into number two. Rule

(01:30):
Number two is that I don't knoweverything. Nobody does, but I don't
know everything. I know a littlebit about a lot, but that's as
far as I go. So ifyou have a question, I might not
be able to answer it, butwe can look it up and I love
doing that. We all learn.It's really cool. The rule number three
is that this show is about beingnice. It's polite conversation between people of

(01:56):
different backgrounds, different beliefs. Wecome together, we can Joe, and
we can have good debates, whichis awesome. Just don't be a dick.
That's it. Simple rules. Andthen then unwritten rule number four is
when I start slurring because I dranktoo much, you guys are supposed to
let me know so that we canend the show. But I already see
people popping in. Hey Bob,Hey kat, Hey Kathy, one,

(02:19):
my buddy one, mister Taco.So tonight I have let me see.
I'd have a bio to read,and it's it's pretty long because this guy
has done a lot, So I'mgonna say this tonight. We have a
special guest, Eric Christopher Myers.He is a writer a filmmaker who's twenty
thirteen movie Roulette took home numerous festivaltrophies and received praise from his critics.

(02:45):
His latest feature, Butterfly Kisses thepainting brings his interest in folklore, urban
legends, and skeptical inquiry to thescreen. Released in October twenty eighteen,
Butterfly Kisses shot to the top ofthe Amazon dot com chart for a new
release fantasy and was featured on bothCBS and Fox News while scoring rave reviews

(03:07):
from high profile horror websites, whichis awesome. It's also a great film,
so I do recommend you check itout. I watched it. It's
freaking good. Myers has also wonnumerous awards for screenwriting and editing for his
collaboration with other independent filmmakers. Hehas been a producer for XM satellite radio
and a reporter for WTOP w TOPNews. He's written film criticism for The

(03:32):
Dagger and Ain't It Cool News,chiefly on the subjects of genre theory and
franchise history. He's got a lotof skills, damn. He is a
contributor to the Squaring the Strange podcast, which I've been on two and he
sits on the board of directors forthe Howard County Autism Society. Plus he

(03:53):
has a rock and dad Bob bod. That's so let's bring him on and
talk to him. And there heis, what's up, buddy, what's
going on this dad? Body?Is that it's sometimes it's not so much
whether the bod is rocking as itis a question of whether you're rocking it.

(04:15):
But I do want to say thankyou for reading that entire thing that
you read. That was like athat's a book. Yeah, that was
a lot to read. And Ithink, and not so much because I'm
so cool that there was so muchto say, but rather that it just
you know, it's it's it's veryold entish in that, you know,

(04:36):
you find the longest way to sayit. Yes, that's okay, I
mean it, it's good. AndI wasn't kidding. I wasn't trying to
kiss your ass with the comments aboutButterfly Kisses. I did watch it um
when I was actually on a trainingbusiness training in North Carolina, and I
was like, I'm bored. I'mbored out of my freaking mind. What
can I do? Oh shit,I've been wanting to watch this film.

(04:59):
So I sat down and watched it, and immediately afterwards is when I painted
this thing. So this is apainting I did a while ago and it's
based on the film and for thelongest time. We just haven't been able
to hook up. But this iseventually going to you. When you first
sent me a photograph of that,I geeked out so hard it became my

(05:25):
Facebook, you know, cover artsor whatever. And I mean, I
gotta say, I view myself asa big giant nobody. You know,
despite all the sat words in mybio, I consider myself a big giant
nobody who is making films and youknow, a part of that Intendet machine

(05:46):
because I'm just a big geek whonever stopped playing with toys. Just now
I do it in front of acamera. And so, as far as
I'm concerned, these are cool thingsthat I'm hoping will connect with people.
But at the same time, I'mrealizing I'm not part of the Hollywood system,
and you know, the odds arevery strong that fewer people will find

(06:08):
my work. So it's just socool when somebody is like, hey,
you know I painted this or Iwrote this song because you know, I
liked your movie and inspired me todo something in my own. That's I
mean that that still blows my mind. So thank you for blowing my mind.
I appreciate it. That's awesome.That's awesome. I'm I mean,

(06:30):
I've been a fan for a whilebecause, as I read in your bio,
you've been on Scoring the Strange podcastwith Ben and Celestia and Pascal,
and I enjoy it. I mean, your knowledge of not only film history,
but especially when it comes to horrorand some of the quote unquote true
stories that they're based on is justexpansive. It's extensive, and I love

(06:57):
listening to all the knowledge that comesout. So and I gotta say,
I mean, first of all,hey, Bob, cool to meet you.
I think that, Yeah, GeorgeRomero and Sam Ramy did, and
then people gave them money and thatwas what allowed them to stop working outside
of the system. And it allcomes down to it all comes down to

(07:18):
commerce. They were fantastic independent voiceswho were able to transition into the major
Sam Ramy much more so than GeorgeRomero. But and then we see that
with Peter Jackson as well, andyou know a number of independent filmmakers.
Technically, George Lucas was an independentfilmmaker. It's just a question of does
Hollywood find a way to exploit whatit is that you're creating on an independent

(07:42):
level. And once they do.They give you the money and they give
you the toys to play with,and suddenly those independent filmmakers aren't independent filmmakers
anymore. We're now going back towhat you were saying before. I am
a huge fan of the episode toSquare in the Strange, you do no
no smoke blowing, And as Iwas telling you offline, Um, before

(08:03):
we started this, I listened tothis show every Friday night, usually as
my son is getting ready for bed, and um, I love you know
this is what I've got streaming inmy hand while he's doing his various steps.
Um So, I weren't we tiedI think for the most number of
guest appearances on Squaring the Stranger,have you gone over me? I don't

(08:26):
know. I don't. I don'tknow. I think I have one that's
in the in the shoot, butthey're saving it like for I don't know
if I'm supposed to say that,but it's kind of like a in case
the they have a week where theyneed all or something. Um So,
because it's not like time sensitive,so it can be actually be aired anytime.
So um but I don't know.I didn't actually I wasn't keeping score,

(08:52):
but I think we're tied, Ithink. I think, yeah,
it's I mean, they're they're goodpeople, Benes Lestia and Pascal and and
and everybody that they have on andthey're sort of rotating circle of people.
UM. You know, it's agreat it's a great network of um like
minded people, but like minded peoplewho have maybe expertise in different areas or

(09:13):
um or you know, really stronginsights in different areas. I found a
lot of the stuff that Celestia talksabout, um, you know, from
an artistic perspective and how you know, she a lot of a lot of
what she's doing as a caricaturist isyou know, there's a there's a huge
degree of psychology involved in that,um trying to bring what is sort of
subtext in a human being that you'rejust meeting for a moment and bringing that

(09:35):
to the four in addition to youknow, just the basic facial features and
mannerisms. I mean, a person'sface changes upon you know, based on
mood and upon you know, differentdifferent you know, ways of speaking or
communicating and you know, different personalityaspects are heightened and augmented. So yeah,
I mean, she had made acomment on one of those shows about

(09:56):
doing she she was doing a talkI think for Dragon Con and about how
her her drawing her caricatures and criticalthinking and observations, and it just like
I had that moment where I wasin the car and I was like,
fuck, like that's a that's beautiful. That yes, absolutely, she's She's

(10:16):
Wow. I got to talk toher and I have actually talked to her,
reached out to her, and youknow, I'm gonna try and schedule
her on the show so we cantalk about that. I'm getting more a
little bit more deep into into observationand all that, because that's a fascinating
topic. Fascinating so let's jump inhere. Let's just jump into tonight's theme

(10:37):
is pretty much let's talk about horrorfilms and some of the curses slash myths
that have gone along with these horrormovies about like sets being haunted or cursed
and people dying and things burning tothe ground and stuff. And I'm pretty
much, like I said before theshow, I'm pretty much relying on you.

(11:01):
So this is your show tonight.You're gonna be pretty much and I'm
just gonna be like the producer inthe background. But I'm going to throw
out a movie and see if youknow anything about it, and then we'll
go from there. Unless you havestuff in that you already have planned,
now go with it, Go withit. So the first one up,
and this was a popular one.People started bringing it up right away,

(11:22):
Poltergeist the original, not the remakebullshit, Um, but the original one.
Uh. And from when I whenI read it's a lot of the
rumors say that it was cursed becauseso many people died, um, like
cast members and stuff that. Well, the Little Girl or Rourke, Heather

(11:43):
or Heather or Heather, yes,and then um, a few other people.
So what do you what do youknow about that? Well? I
mean it's it's almost like before youcan get into the subject of cursed movies,
you must have to dig a littlebit deeper. And what you find

(12:03):
these films all have in common.Whether we're talking about Poultergeist or we're talking
about my Celestia, whether we're talkingabout Poultergeist or we're talking about The Exorcist
or The Omen the Crow, anumber of films that are reputedly you know,
cursed and their franchises have become cursedas a result. The other thing

(12:26):
that they have in common assigned frompeople dying is the fact that usually these
are very troubled productions. They're usuallycases where the studio has perhaps lost control
of the director or the director islosing control of his film. And this

(12:48):
is a this is a very verycommon thing. And I'm not saying that
the two things are related, butit is very curious that I would call,
you know, a franchise, andwe'll get to it, but I
would call a franchise like The Exorcistcursed, not necessarily because there were any
demons at work, but rather becausethe first film was such a victim of

(13:11):
its own success that none of thesequels could possibly live up to it,
and it caused all sorts of studiomedaling in every single one that led to
a very very hobbled film in eachcase. And that's before we even start
talking about you know, haunted setsand things like that. It's you find

(13:31):
that there are all there's all sortsof drama going on that you have to
wonder if perhaps it's a question ofis this film really cursed or is there
a certain pr spin being put onit in order to sell more tickets,
or is it perhaps a pr workof misdirection to get people to pay less

(13:56):
attention to the fact that a directorwas replaced in the middle of, you
know, doing the film, orum, you know, a key actor
died it it, you know,and and that caused all sorts of you
know, frantic rewrites and stuff.You have to you have to wonder exactly
where the curse uh motive is placed. Um, when you say that,

(14:22):
it almost reminds me. It bringsto mind the Crow. Yes, when
you're when you're giving examples like,well, not examples, but when describing
that, it's like, all allI could think about was the Crow.
And we heard that Brandon Lee waskilled during filming and that the the footage
allegedly was still in there. Itwas still being used, and it sounds

(14:43):
like I almost I feel I feelbad saying it, but I wanted to
see it, you know. AndI think that goes right in with what
you're saying, is that people wantit to see it. They release that
information and people just wanted to seethat. So is that kind of what
you're described It would drive up sales, it does. I mean, you
know, there's a reason why TheDark Knight was the most profitable Batman movie

(15:07):
of all time, and it hadmore to do with Heath Ledger dying than
it had to do with Heath Ledgerplaying the Joker or even the fact that
it was another Batman movie. There'sa mystique and you know, the words
hi Coral, the words dead actorwho you know are definitely going to especially

(15:30):
if you know it's his or herslast work, this is the thing that
killed them, and everyone becomes veryvery curious. The Crow is a really
good example because they had enough ofthat film in the can that they were
able to get away with a coupleof very very obvious scenes where a stand
in was used. They're very veryobvious if you, you know, are

(15:54):
paying any sort of attention at all. But those were also scenes that were
sort of stop gap scenes that werecreated in order to, you know,
artificially pull the story together to youknow, in place of the things that
were needed there, and they findother ways of communicating that information. But

(16:15):
what you're talking about right there isa film that is compromised by virtue of
the fact that it had to bedramatically reshuffled in a way that perhaps wasn't
as creative or as interesting as itmight have been otherwise, but you stop
paying attention to that stuff because ohmy god, it's Brandon Lee's last film.
And right yeah, in the audienceyou're looking in You're like, oh

(16:37):
my god, I'm watching this,I'm watching when it happened. You think
you think you're watching when it happenedexactly, you know, I mean,
if you if you're talking about Poltergeist, you know, one of the worst
kept secrets in Hollywood history is thefact that Toby Hooper, the director of
the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, was recruitedyou direct Poultergeist at the same time that

(17:03):
Spielberg was shooting et and on thesame backlot, and Spielberg was producing Poultergeist.
And the way the story goes,and if you hear it differently from
different cast and crew, but somepeople say that Toby Hooper directed Pultergeist,

(17:26):
and then other people say that Spielbergand the studio became very concerned when they
saw what Toby Hooper was producing,and as such, Spielberg was coming over
from you know, another set ona bicycle to essentially ghost direct Poltergeist.
And I mean, the fact ofthe matter is, no Toby Hooper film

(17:49):
before or after Poultergeist feels like Poultergeistin any way imaginable. But it does
feel like a Steven Spielberg film.It does feel very much like an eighties
era Steven Spielberg. Yeah, andso I mean that alone is a situation
where, if it's true, itmeans that a film was essentially I mean

(18:15):
a director was emasculated in front ofhis cast and crew. I mean,
you know, he has balls cutoff, as you know, Steven Spielberg
at sort of the height of hispowers, is standing there directing over his
shoulder. That's and Toby Hooper neverwent on to direct anything of that scale
again, So I mean you sortof piece that together and go, you

(18:38):
know, it gets real interesting forthe marketing machine to jump on unfortunate deaths
and accidents rather than creating a scandalthat hurts Toby Hooper or makes Steven Spielberg
look back. Yeah, and therewere a couple of deaths associated with it.
This is just a disclaimer. Thisis probably the movie I researched the

(19:00):
most for Tonight, so I mighthave actually information for this. I actually
have like a full print out,so I won't be as informed for these
other movies that we bring up andtalk about. But the Big Sister Dominique
Dune. She was a twenty twoyear old that played the Big Sister Dana

(19:22):
in the first film. She waskilled by her ex boyfriend soon after I
June eighty two, okay or yeah, November eighty two, so not long
after the first film was released,and apparently they had a falling out and
the ex boyfriend came over to tryto make up and it didn't go well,
and he ended up a strangler orstrangling her for like several minutes,

(19:48):
put her in a coma, andthen she died from that horrible, horrible
But it's like to me when Ihear that, it's of course it's a
tragic event, but I don't.I don't see anything that's supernatural, paranormal
or would be cursed. It was. It was a dick um, a
dickhead that just went off. Itwas an abusive relationship and it went it

(20:15):
escalated to the unfortunate end um.But somehow it gets incorporated into a curse
um because then we have Heather Alework, I mean she she I think
it was during was it during thethird film or right after the third film?
It was during the third film.And in fact, you can see

(20:37):
if you in certain scenes she hashuge, I mean huge chipmunk cheeks.
Right, that was due to themet treatments that she was received. Wow
wow, And and so yeah she, I mean she passed away during the
filming. And then the creepy lady. But the creepy lady that was in
all three films. Um, what'sher name, Zelda Rubenstein, Zelda Rooms.

(21:03):
Yes, yes, yes, okay, yeah, I mean she she
always freaked me to fuck out,honestly. I mean from the first film.
As soon as I saw when sheopened her mouth the first time,
I was like, oh no,no, no, no, I will
not be friends with her. Um. But she passed away I think after
the films were done, ye,some time after, And so all these

(21:27):
were spun into like a curse.Why why do you why do you think
I mean, all these unrelated instances, Um, like of course heathero Rourke.
I mean that was a sudden thingthat came on, um and it.
But I do read like every timeI've read like a horror sight or
you know, something that was talkingabout the curse, it was always mysterious,

(21:49):
mysterious circumstances that led to her death. But then you when you read
the later reports and realize, okay, it looked like maybe swelling and the
intestine and it caused this condition orsomething. Yes, it was sudden,
but nothing supernatural sudden. It wasjust it was sudden. So what do

(22:10):
you what do you think about this? I think that we have the Exorcist
to thank and to blame for thissort of thing, because the Exorcist was
a film that I mean number one. It and the novel were both allegedly
based on a true story, andanybody who does even a cursory amount of

(22:33):
research will find that the actual casebears very little similarity to the film,
and actually bears very little similarity todemonic possession. But the fact that the
Exorcist was, you know, quotedas being a true story, and also
the fact that the Warner Brothers marketingmachine came out and said people are dying,

(22:56):
you know while we're filming this.You know, family members of actors
and crew people are dying, andnight watchmen are dying, and a set
burned down, and we brought apre stout to you know, do an
actual blessing on the set. Youknow, I mean, that's just that
great keyard. That's wonderful. Theproblem is, you saw everybody start copying
that, and you know, wethen also enter this phase where it starts

(23:22):
getting a little meta because the AmityvilleHorror comes out, which is also allegedly
based on a true case. Butthen you've got people like Ed and Lorraine
Warren who then begin realizing that theycan make a profit off of these based

(23:42):
on a true stories by creating thestory on which the movie and book will
be based. So they start comingup with these schemes the you know,
the the Devil in Connecticut and theSmirls and all of that stuff. They
they start correlation and causation get ratherblurred there we go, so you know,

(24:07):
the Warrens start sort of prefabbing theseinstant books and instant movies, and
at that point, you know,we're also experiencing the height of the slasher
craze in the mid eighties, andso you know, a movie, a
quat little movie like Pultergeist needs something. When it's time to put out a

(24:30):
part two, they really need somethingadditional to get teenagers to want to go
out and see what was otherwise.I mean Apart from the scary clown,
no one was particularly scared by poulterGeist. But the Nightmare on Elm Street
movies are freaking people out, andyou know the fact that there's going to

(24:52):
be another movie, you know,coming out made for TV based on,
you know, the true exploits ofthese demonologists. I mean, a movie
like Poulter Geis really needs to findsomething to stand up and stand out with.
And so when you create this mystiquethat people affiliated with the production die,

(25:14):
this isn't like family members die,like people that are in the movie
die. At that point, thatcreates the allure that makes the audience go,
Okay, I need to go seethis thing that is literally killing people.
You know, it's like the Ringbut you know it's really happening,
and you know, will it killme? What is it that's so scary?

(25:37):
Sells tickets? And you've got tofind a way to stand out,
right, And you're right. Andthe more I think about it, more
we talk about this, it's it'syeah, thinking about like the Amityville Horror
and The Exorcist compared to Poultergeis,You're right. Besides the clown, that
fucking clown, it really wasn't scary, and it really when you take that

(26:03):
clown aspect out, it becomes evenmore of a Spielberg film. It really
has his feel to it. Andwow, I mean that's I really didn't
think about that like that before,so really interesting. But yeah, it
wasn't really scary at all, andit's a very tame movie at a time
when slashers were the craze, andthe slashers stuff was becoming ultra violent to

(26:26):
the point where the MP DOUBLEA neededto step in and they started cracking down
on it and the films began becomingmore bloodless. But then you've got you
know, the stuff that is alittle bit more, you know, demon
possession, you know, the endlessAmityville sequels and stuff like that. Those
are also happening at the same time, which just happens to be the height

(26:49):
of the Satanic panic, at whichpoint, you know, parents are afraid
to send their kids to preschool becausethey're getting flushed down toilets, to magical
lands and being you know, sexuallyassaulted by Chuck Morris. You know it.
People were seeing witchcraft and Satanism behindevery picket fence, So you know,

(27:11):
I mean, I feel like everythingbecame sort of, um, you
know, all trefied. Um,you know, you're it's the nineteen eighties.
Yeah, excess was everywhere. Yeah, Friday thirteenth, I mean that
those movies were like the big Slasher, you know, and blood and Guts
and I just I just actually justwatched Part two and it was just like,

(27:34):
wow, that's a that's a lotof blood. I remember seeing this.
Yeah, it was pretty graphic.Okay, So cashing in on the
death of your cast members, Imean that's like, that's that. I
mean, that's a that's a ticketright there, that's a gold ticket right
there that you don't get that sortof luck. You know, our people
are dying. Let's let's ride thatnumber one at the box office this week.

(27:56):
That's it sounds so horrible, butright, it just it works.
It works. Oh, there isno such thing as bad publicity. Yeah
apparently. Yeah. We got aquestion from j D. I'm going to
cover us up to either of youthink that the context of the film has
something to do with whether or notstories of curses or hauntings emerged during troubled

(28:18):
production. For example, I don'tthink there's any stories of Blade Runner or
the Island of Doctor Moreau being cursedand filming those movies was hell. But
they're not films about the supernatural.You want to you want to jump on
this first, or well, Imean I think, yeah, the context

(28:40):
of the film does have something todo with it. I mean, as
we already been talking about the timeperiod these films came out, Yes,
it was big with slashers or basedon true story. I mean, I
think that has a big deal.That would be the angle I'm going with
that. If you have like theAdamyville horror coming out or The Exorcist,

(29:00):
and you have that tagline based ona true story, you know that this
was a time when when people likeme we were growing up watching like Unsolved
Mysteries or in Search of and thesewere these were supernatural mysteries that fascinated the
shit out of us, and we'rewatching them on the big screen. This

(29:22):
adaptation, which is we didn't weweren't aware of it at the time,
but it was highly embellished and andjust off the deep end embellished interpretation of
events. So yeah, I couldtotally see how that kind of stuff the
context of it, because it's it'sbased on a real haunting reel and when

(29:45):
stuff, when normal things happen,shit breaks, people get hurt, which
happens. I'm sure on every production, every single production, you have accidents
like that. Um, shit breaks, people don't show. Wow, something
goes wrong years later and after diesthat was in the movie. It fucking
happens. I mean people die thatthat's it happened. So yeah, I

(30:08):
would I would say the context reallydoes push it because if it has to
do with some kind of horror orsupernatural thing, yeah, I think it's
easier to attach a cursed rumor tothat kind of genre rather than like something
like, um, I don't know, like a Lego movie. I mean,

(30:29):
I don't think you're gonna hear toomany curses about a Lego movie.
Um. I mean it would begreat, but no, I don't think
you're gonna hear anything about that.So all right, your return. I
mean, every production is cursed.You you were absolutely right, and um,
you know every film that I've workedon every day is cursed. You

(30:51):
know. There's that there's that oldadage that if it can go wrong,
it will go wrong. So youhave to be as prepared as possible so
that you can then focus on allship that you're not prepared for. But
it's really the grand genyall of itall, isn't it. I mean,
isn't that sort of people people rubberneck when they see a car accident on

(31:11):
the side of the road. Theyyou know, we fancy ourselves, or
maybe before twenty twenty we fancied ourselvescivilized creatures. But at the end of
the day, we are willing tohold up traffic and not complain about it
too much, and be late towork or late home to spend time with
our kids if maybe we can geta glimpse of someone else's very gory misery.

(31:34):
And as such, you know,I think that the Island of Doctor
Moreau or you know, other quoteunquote cursed productions that are outside of the
horror genre, it doesn't have thatgrand genyall quality to it because it's like,
oh, you know, so andso died after they were filming it.

(31:55):
Oh that's tragic, No one reallycares. But the idea that the
horror film has some sort of eviljuju is that is clinging to it,
that is hurting people. That makesit enticing and and I view very much

(32:15):
watching horror as sort of the equivalentof rubbernecking at that car accident, because
we have the safety and security ofour knowledge that we are voyeurs in this
scenario, we are not participants.Therefore, it's exciting to watch guys and

(32:38):
girls hacked up or terrible things happeningto people in very violent ways, especially
if they're sort of archetypal characters thatyou know, you know in these in
slasher movies where you're like, oh, yeah, I know a bitch just
like that, I'm so glad tosee her die, you know, you
know, Or that guy used tobully me at school, I'm glad he
got a machete in his face andhis wheelchair pushed backward down the stairs,

(33:00):
you know. I mean, it'slike, there is that comfort of the
fact that eventually the movie ends andwe're still here in our living room with
our loved ones doing our thingum So, therefore, to be able then to
go and see a horror movie thathas this terrible sheen of evil or you
know, a curse clinging to itor something you know that's getting one step

(33:22):
closer, that's that's exciting because thisisn't just a horror movie. This is
a horror movie that you know,has something embedded in the very you know,
celluloid itself in the Silver Allies thatis, you know, exploding and
shooting evil juice out at everybody thatis within a certain radius. I love

(33:42):
how you articulate everything. Well,thank you, thank you. It's just
I mean, you know, weall want to see those awful things happen,
and so I think that, youknow, even the horror element is
what makes it so attractive and sointeresting to us, because it makes the
fear and it makes the violence takeon an added layer. If you look

(34:07):
at something like we were talking aboutThe Dark Knight earlier and Heath Ledger dying
and that adding this mystique to thefilm. I guarantee you that had it
been Christian Bale who had died andthis was his last on screen appearance as
Batman, that audiences probably you know, it would have been a story and

(34:30):
you know, oh, this isso tragic and awful, and we lost
a very talented character actor. Andyou know, people that we're going to
see Batman, we're gonna go seethat Batman movie, perhaps more quickly than
they would have otherwise. Would ithave driven up ticket sales substantially and had
people who wouldn't normally go to seea Batman movie see it. I mean,
that's really where the debate is.The difference though, with Heath Ledger

(34:54):
dying was that just like Christian Bale, he he was perhaps more so an
actor that had a lot of alot of clout based on some very strong
performances he had given some very braveperformances. I still contend that Brokeback Mountain
is one of the most beautiful filmsI've ever seen, and I find it

(35:16):
so upsetting that too many filmmakers Iknow personally refused to watch the movie,
even just academically or technically, becauseit's that gay movie about cowboys, and
I don't like gay people who arecowboys. I find it sad and depressing.
But the fact is that Heath Ledgerwas this incredible actor, but he

(35:38):
was also playing an iconic character whois a version the very poor. The
joker is her version of childhood innocence. He's a scary clown. He kills
you. He doesn't make you laugh, he makes you scream. He is

(35:58):
a weird character. And the factthat Heath Ledger apparently died going full method
and experimenting with extreme sleep deprivation andisolation to bring this weird, scary character
to the screen. Everyone wanted tosee that, They wanted to experience that,

(36:20):
which ultimately killed him because of hisbecause of the drugs that he was
taking in order to sustain that lifestyle. Wow. Wow damn Yeah, I
mean, you're you're right. Imean, I don't think I think it
would have been a different story ifit was Christian Bale, you know it,
like yeah, because of those reasons. And I was, I was.

(36:44):
I was definitely more of a HeathLedger fan than Kristen Bale. Especially
A Knight's Tale is like one ofmy favorite movies. I love that,
and just I loved him as ajoker and thought it was great. Yeah
yeah, wow, all right,So, um, I do have a
question here if you want to takethat before we move on from John Michael.

(37:06):
He says, in your experience inthe industry, where do producers,
directors, et cetera. Get theirstories from? It seems that Hollywood impacts
our culture's beliefs in the paranormal,But where does Hollywood get its sources real
life? Lately? I mean,I mean, I can just comment quickly
I don't know if this is corrector not, but it seems like they

(37:28):
just get it from any bullshit storythat makes the news, um that goes
viral anymore. For one of thethe movies that I had on my list,
which really didn't have any kind ofcurse to it, was called The
Possession, and it's based on theDippick Box, because I mean, a

(37:49):
Dippick Box was something that made madethe news because you know, it was
it was a hoax. It wasliterally a hoax that was sold on eBay
and the next person that got itapparently there's still some question about the second
person owned it, but the thirdperson owned it. Jason Haxton wrote a
book about it, lots of assumptionsand speculation and embellishments, in my opinion,

(38:15):
and then it caught the attention ofproducers who made a movie based on
the story. And I just feellike sometimes that's what it is. Especially
lately, you see like stories comeup like the slender Man and well the
Divit Box is one of them,and I think the inspiration lately maybe is

(38:38):
coming from viral videos or viral storiesrather than the independent stuff. Like I've
been aware more recently of the independentwork, and I see more original stories
there, some good, some notso good, but it's still I see

(39:00):
I see better stories coming from independentthan big Hollywood, because it looks like
big Hollywood is just taking what's popularat the time making it a story.
So what's your take, I mean, good question, John Michael, It's
a it's a really really good question, and there's no easy answer for it,

(39:22):
other than to say that Hollywood isa system in which you have everyone
essentially looking at everyone else's test paperin class, you know, and everyone's
trying to copy what everybody else isdoing without much confidence in their own ideas

(39:43):
or finding, you know, newand striking ideas. It's crazy when you
know, a film or a filmmakerbecomes sort of accidentally part of the zeitgeist.
You know, nobody predicted it,and then everyone wants to copy that
until it stops being something that's freshand original and clever and just starts being,
you know, another part of asubgenre. Look at the Blair Witch

(40:07):
Project for example. The blair WitchProject was like an accidental success story.
This is the same year that youknow, the Hunting remake came out,
and these two movies could not beany more opposite if they tried. But
the Blair Witch Project was a caseof sort of making the most of financial

(40:28):
and technical limitations and doing so ina way that made sense within the world
of the story, and it waswildly successful. Now, the Blair Witch
Project, rather than being this incredible, striking avant garde's sort of film that
was borrowing from some other films likeCannibal Holocaust and Manya Kanya, but nonetheless

(40:52):
was the popcorn version of what wenow know as found footage. Now it's
simply the first movie in that entiresubgenre that has, you know, defied
genre. It's gone. Outside ofhorror, You've got movies like Chronicle or
you know, other found footage moviesthat are you know, comedies and um,
you know, so again it's aquestion of copying when it comes to

(41:14):
the parent normal. It's sort ofI mean, it's it's sad because right
now what you're seeing in horror morethan anything else is just endless remake after
endless remake um usually usually shortsighted remakesof classic films. But then you've got

(41:37):
you've you've got other films that,like, for example, The Conjuring Um
sort of Avenger style universe of evilsthat aren't real. You know, you've
got You've got like the conjuring filmsthat are grossly misrepresenting the exploits of um

(42:00):
Ed and Lorraine Warren Um to adegree that I get angry when I watch
those films the way that they're presentedas these incredibly rational and morally centered,
um, intelligent, educated, altruistichuman beings rather than the scum that they

(42:22):
were. Um. But you see, you see those movies that are claiming
to be based on true stories andcontain you know, it's it's it's like
it's like one of Colonel Tom Parker'suh, you know, hot dogs at
the carnival, where you just gottwo little hot dog ends and a whole
bunch of filler in the middle onyou're being sold a foot long dog.
It's that's basically what those conjuring moviesare. They're total bullshit, but they're

(42:45):
telling you that it's true and thatthis is what happened, and this is
what you know, the powers ofthe devil are, and you know,
this is what demonology is, andthe only way to protect yourself and and
your people are believing that stuff basedon the based on a true story tagline
is rarely true. The Conjuring films, I mean, especially the first one,

(43:08):
really angers me. I can't standwatch. I don't want to watch
it because it's so grossly misrepresents thehistorical events that didn't happen or did happen.
And I did I did quite abit of research on this. I
wrote a very long article UM thatreally went into all the alleged deaths slash

(43:30):
suicides that happened or actually didn't happenat the house that are attributed to the
house and attributed to the cause ofthe hauntings. And it angers me,
especially with the main the main evilperson or Shiva during the Conjuring film,

(43:50):
that had nothing to do with anyof the stories associated with her. And
I mean I went up there.I actually drove up there. UM.
I met with Nora, who wasthe previous owner of the house. UM.
I also met with a U aformer journalist retired journalist, and we
did some work for hours and hours, going through all the documents and papers
and found everything there was to find. And they're absolutely nothing to do with

(44:15):
killing babies or um inquisition or anykind of court hearing or anything like that.
So all the information that that putwas put out by that film completely
false, completely false. Um.And it really bothers me because one of
the found members, the parents,um, who put out a series of

(44:37):
books which are horrible. By theway, I cannot recommend you not reading
these pieces of shit more anymore thanthan the anger that is preventing me from
speaking smoothly, because they're just thatbad. Um. They're poorly written,
and just the the historical research isa load of shit. Um, it's

(45:02):
like all in part with somebody notresearching at all, that's how bad it
is, and just making shit upas they went. So that, Yeah,
that particularly particularly film really pisses meoff because it's it's just bullshit.
I'm surprised the second one doesn't pissyou off more because it's even more bullshit
than the first one is. It'sit's less true to what really happened.

(45:24):
I agree, because that's the endfield one, the end field which they
had nothing to do with. Theyhad nothing to do with. Um,
they were booted. They were actuallyboot They tried. I know that they
went there, they tried to getin. They were immediately booted out and
not allowed to take part. SoI guess the difference between the two films

(45:46):
is, like, I know,the second one is even more of an
embellishment with their involvement, but thefirst one, to me, it's the
embellishment of the historical record that tarnishesthe reputation of several people that had nothing
to do with that house. Yeah, and you know, I'm actually really

(46:07):
worried about the Third Conjuring Movie.And yeah, I mean, can we
can have a whole other conversation aboutI'm just worried about movies in general right
now. The impending death of thecinematic experience is really depressing for a guy
who decided that he was going tomake his life and career out of the
cinematic experience. But the Third ConjuringMovie, I believe the subtitle, right,

(46:31):
the working subtitle is the Devil MadeMe Do It. It's the It's
the very famous so called demon murdercase. And if anybody is further interested
in what I would consider a veryfascinating story, the most fascinating story in
fact, that edin Lorraine Warren wereever involved with UM, I would recommend

(46:52):
going and checking out the two partSquaring the Strange episodes on Edin, Lorraine
Warren, and I run my mouthabout this demon murder case because it's fascinating
to me. It's so fascinating infact, that I've gotten to know or
had contact with a number of peopleinvolved in the real case. And it's

(47:15):
it's the story of a little boywho and it's it's very much in the
mold of the exorcist true story inthat you have a boy who is allegedly
possessed and then has a series ofexorcisms and or deliverances performed on them.
That that's the story, but alittle bit of digging starts to reveal that

(47:39):
there might have been other psychological oremotional or behavioral issues at play. But
at any rate, the core ofthe story is there is a boy who
is possessed and then he is exercisedin the case of the demon murder case.
Ed and Lorraine Warren of course getinvolved in the story, and they

(48:00):
um fancied themselves official official liaisons tothe Catholic Church, and you know,
would set the you know, inthat very Ed Warren way of speaking that
he had, you know, it'slike, now this is what you're gonna
do it during the exorcism, makesure, you don't do that, because
that's what the devil wants you to, you know, like telling the priests

(48:20):
how to do, you know whatthey actually went to school to learn how
to do. But at any rate, so the Warrens are there, they're
assisting with the exorcisms and the possessedboys. Older sister her boyfriend kills their

(48:40):
landlord and then you know, theshort version is kills the landlord and then
says that the demon hopped out ofhis girlfriends you know, little brother into
him and then back into the littleboy. And it results in the very
first trial in the United States whereyou know, not Guilty by virtue of
demonic possession was ever attempted, andthe entire family has fractured and sort of

(49:07):
fallen apart as a result of thebook that was written as a result of
the movie that was made for TVand eighty three starring Andy Griffith as Ed
Warren and a young Kevin Bacon asArnie Johnson, the not Guilty by Virtue
of Demonic Possession Kid. But Imean again, I've read the book countless

(49:28):
times, I've seen the TV movie. I've communicated with family members because for
a while before the Conjuring I washoping to actually license our life rights and
make a movie that was like itwas going to be two threads running simultaneously,
where the one thread was the HollywoodExorcist style version and the other thread

(49:50):
running at the same time in parallelin tandem, was telling the exact same
story. But from the perspective thatit was all a con that was all
bullshit. Um, of course,you know, Hollywood, Warner Brothers come
knocking, and you lose the rightsto do that. But the point to
all of this is that that isostensibly what the Conjuring three is going to
be about. And it was atotal scam. And I dread to see

(50:16):
the pole faced representation that we aregoing to get featuring those two sanctimonious on
screen fuckers, which so I'm Ifeel the same way. And uh,
a while back, I did writea article that because um my, my

(50:37):
buddy, my buddy, mister Bagginsum acquired the rocking chair, the alleged
rocking chair where the devil apparently satin and rocked during um one of these
extras, during the events that surroundingthis little boy in the room when this
was going on. Um, soI wrote an a the beasts beat here.

(51:00):
Yes, the beast So I wroteabout that because there was an incident
and at his museum, and Iwas able to obtain information from other sources,
UM, concerning that. But asource that I did not expect contact
at me and I don't I'm notgoing to give away exactly who because it's

(51:22):
it's I don't know if they wantto reveal it yet. UM. But
they gave me information they're close tothe family or we can talk after the
show. UM. But they werethere in the room at the time,
UM. And all the stuff thatwas said, and this is somebody that's

(51:43):
close to the family, so alleverything that was said that happened in that
room with the chair rocking and allthis complete bullshit. Um. And and
this person has records and documents andstuff that they are willing to share with
me. UM. But there's legalconcern So that's why I'm not getting into
great detail. It sounds like youand I have been talking to some of

(52:04):
the same people recently, but we'llhave to compare notes, as you said.
But you know, I mean Ithink that with that being said,
and I know that a number ofitems have come up due to deaths in
the family, and so certain youknow, original artifacts, photographs, journals,

(52:24):
records, furniture, stuff of thesort has sort of leaked out of
family control to a certain degree.Yes, and it's it's it's it's very
interesting to learn these things. Butby that same token, all one need
do is pick up a copy ofGerald Brittles The Devil in Connecticut, which

(52:50):
is the book that this story wasallegedly based on and in fact inspired a
lawsuit around about two thousand and seven, because the book, which not a
print in the early eighties, wasre released in two thousand and six without
all the family members consenting to it, And there are certain family members and
I think at this point it's safeenough to say that the Glassial family,

(53:15):
this large extended family of suffer brothersand a sister and a murderous boyfriend and
a mom and a dad, andthe Glassol family was sort of really hurt
by the book coming out, inthe movie coming out, And depending on
who you talk to and what linesyou read between, it sounds as though

(53:37):
the Warrens did their usual thing,which was they would go around sniffing for
families that they could essentially exploit.You know, they got into the Amityville
business, they decided to keep replicatingthat. And so you look at the
Amityville story, you look at thestory of the Smirls, you look at
the Seneddekers, you look at youlook at all these very the Glassiols,

(53:58):
you look at all these various familyplies, and the stories are basically all
the same, maybe with the occasionalwrinkle because in this one, you know,
he was raped by a succubus,but in this one he killed a
person while he was possessed. They'vegot they've got a few little deviations happening
there, but more or less ofthe same story. And it seems as

(54:19):
though the Warrens might have sort ofand this is a lot of this is
me just putting things together that havenot necessarily all been confirmed, but it
would seem that the Warrens perhaps learnedthat there had been the very first,
the very first killing in Brookfield,Connecticut, and perhaps approached the family or

(54:42):
were introduced to the family. Butregardless said hey, look here's the thing.
We can make lots of money.Remember the Amityville hard that was us.
So here's what we're gonna do.We're gonna say that, So,
yeah, let's pick him. Hewas possessed, and he was possessed,
and we were helping you. Youknow, we were helping you. We've
been here the whole time. Andthen Arnie, you know, challenged the

(55:05):
demon during one of our things,and the demons took him up on it
at a bad time and made himkill somebody. And now he's gonna the
demon is playing with all of ourlives, and we're gonna we're gonna have
an author write a book about it, and then we're gonna sell this to
TV. We'll do interviews, willmake lots and lots of money, and
all you got to do is signon this piece of paper, at which
point then the family doesn't get anythingout of it. The Warrens continue to

(55:30):
make all this money off of thebook and the movie deals, but the
families don't really make anything. Butwhat does happen is they're kind of shunned
and or ostracized by their communities.People start looking at them differently. Children
who have allegedly been possessed, orhave brothers or sisters who were possessed,

(55:51):
are being made fun of at school. You never live that down, you
know, you were the kid theymade a movie of the Week about,
you know, back when you werein fourth great and I mean it's it's
really sad, and it leads toa lot of people who are pissed off
and are suffering from a certain levelof PTSD as a result. And you

(56:12):
know, maybe that compromises relationships.Maybe certain people want to continue to tell
themselves and tell the world, youknow, demonic things did in fact occur,
whereas other people are going, hey, I was a miner when mom
and dad decided to sell our liferights away. I never got I never
no one asked me if this wasokay, And now I'm an adult who's
got this stigma as a consequence.You know, it creates all of these

(56:36):
issues. And in the case ofthe Glassial Story, in the case of
the Glassil Story, when the bookwas rereleased in two thousand and six,
certain family members, including the possessedboy David, stood up and said,
to hell with this. Where noone asked me. This has been an
issue for me my entire life.And I'm a grown up and you're trying
to bring this back so that youcan then try to sell it to Hollywood.

(57:00):
The family, you know, spliteven further, and they were having
all sorts of legal disputes over it. And how they came to terms,
I'm not sure, but the thirdmovie is apparently in the can. Yeah
I did. I mean, afterafter I was contacted, I started through
a little digging to see if Icould find like a resolution to the lawsuits.

(57:21):
But I couldn't find anything. Um, like nothing. I kept finding
about the lawsuit, but nothing.I mean, and this has been years,
so there had to be something.It's probably deep under wraps, um,
but obviously it's still going through becauseyeah, this this film is being
made um sadly, and and likeyou, I'm I am so worried about

(57:45):
how it's going to represent the storyor how it's going to present the bullshit.
Yeah, and you know, Italked to one of the key family
members right before the pandemic happened,and he didn't give me the entire story

(58:06):
in terms of, you know,how matters were resolved, but we were
planning to meet up and have aconversation. Because I'm in Maryland. I
was like, Okay, I'll driveup to Connecticut and meet some of these
people in person. That would bereally awesome. As a fanboy, for
this bullshit story, and then thepandemic happened, and so I haven't been

(58:30):
able to make that happen, butthat I'm very interested. And you know,
one of the one of the bigquestions I had was in the case
of this story, I would recommendanybody that's interested, I said, you
know, check out the two partSquaring a Strange episode about Ed Lorraine Warren
where we talk about the story.Also check out Gerald Brittle's The Devil in

(58:52):
Connecticut book. Like I said,way out of print, but you can
still find copies. And then therewas the TV movie The Demon Murder Case
that I saw when it first premieredon television in nineteen eighty three and spent
most of my adult life trying totrack down until I found finally a bootleg

(59:15):
of it in the heartbeat before YouTubebecame a thing, and now you can
just type in that title and it'sall over YouTube. My quest has been
rendered obsoletely, but nonetheless, oneof the things that was interesting about the
Demon Murder Case movie is that everybody'sname was changed. Every single person's name
has changed, including Ed Laray Warren. There there are Ed and Lorraine Warren's

(59:38):
stand ins but Andy Griffith is notplaying Edie's playing a character named Guy Harris.
So I always wondered what the specificrationale for that was. It was
telling a true story with finger quotes, it was advertising itself as telling a

(59:58):
true story, and it was basicallyThe Exorcist for network television circa Bosom Buddies,
and I wondered why they changed thenames. And so when the Conjuring
three was announced, I went toIMDb, and the very first thing I
looked for I was less interested inwho the cast was and what the names
of the characters are, especially withthe familial divide. I was like,

(01:00:21):
a certain characters going to be basedon the real people because they signed off
on it. Are others going tohave sort of sound alike names? Will
Bill be Will or something like that? Or will everybody be given a fake
name? And from what I cantell, everybody is the person that they
are based on. So I'm surethat there's a certain amount of this that

(01:00:42):
factors into that. Well that's awesome. See, that's why I love you
when you just talk, when youjust go give you a topic and let
you talk, because so much information. I love it. I just put
the link to part one of thePsychic or the Scoring the Strange with that
Edin Waring Warren, I just putthe link in the chat room so people

(01:01:05):
can click on that if you wantto after this show. Don't do it
now, but you can listen toit so well that be given a suggestion,
what is your favorite I guess horrormovie curse story, unless we've already
talked about it, which Warren likefascinates you the most. That's really really

(01:01:28):
hard to say, and I meanfor a lot of reasons, and I've
already mentioned it a couple of times. The Exorcist is not only one of
my favorite films, it's definitely myfavorite horror film of all time. Despite
being, you know, sort ofa militant atheist as I am, that

(01:01:49):
film has a power and if itis dinged in any way, it's by
virtue of the fact that you know, at the end the the old white
Catholic guys walk in and you knowyou is black magic and booga booga to
get rid of the bigger booga booga, And to me that that sort of
takes away what I think is thegreatest strength of the film, which is
the horror of a parent seeing theirchild, um afflicted with something terrible that

(01:02:16):
they are powerless to help. Andall of the people like doctors who are
supposed to make my baby better can'tand are essentially saying, um, your
kid needs to go to a witchdoctor. And to me that that's terrifying.
That's that's absolutely terrifying. But youknow, I find it. I

(01:02:37):
find it interesting that it's, youknow, sort of the original cursed movie.
And again, this is really somethingthat boils down to genre because you
look at a movie like Cleopatra.That's a movie that sank a studio.
I mean that that was that wasa cursed film that that had Richard Burton
and Elizabeth Taylor and all of thismoney put into building pyramids and you know,

(01:03:01):
colisseums and stuff, and it bombed, and it bombed. It bombed
badly, and that hurt a lotof people at a time when the film
industry was struggling to compete with thatwicked new thing called television, and it
was important to bring people and getbutts in seats. You had to put

(01:03:28):
all that money up on screen.You needed to shoot and CinemaScope in Glorious
Eastman Kodak, it was a itwas a real big deal. And but
the Exorcist is the one that youknow, everyone sort of talked in very
hushed and still talk in very hushed, reverential tones about the movie because you

(01:03:50):
know, number one, it's thescariest movie I've ever seen. My mom,
My mom saw it and she toldme that she believed she was possessed
by demons afterwards. True story.I mean, everyone's got that sort of
thing that they tell about that movie. You know, I didn't sleep for
a week after I saw it,So you know, number one, it's
it's it's got that mystique of itsreputation. Number two, the Exorcist happens

(01:04:14):
to be a really good, reallyscary film on its own merits. But
then number three, you've got thewhole it's based on a true story thing
which people just seem to miss.The based on art, yeah, and
skip straight to a true story basedon can mean all sorts of things.

(01:04:42):
Anything is based on a true story. You know, I can put together
a story about an alien invasion that'sbased on a true story because you know,
I took something innocuous that happened tome today and I you know,
spun it full of metaphor and aboutsomething else. So you know it's based
on a true story. Don't squinttoo closely, because you'll see that it's

(01:05:06):
really not based on a true story. The only thing it really has in
common is the fact that it tookplace in a suburb of you know,
watching the DC and had an exorcism. I mean, that's really it.
Yeah, that's it. As longas you have like a name or a
place. I like, say,if a murder took place in a town,

(01:05:30):
that's it. If that happened,then you can take that and say
based on a true story, andthen you can spin around demons and ghosts,
aliens and Bigfoot all mixed into thestory, but it's still based on
a true story exactly. And thenyou take that a step further and you
go to the fourth and final point, which is what happened in real life

(01:05:58):
to this little boy and nine wasso evil and involved such powerful entities that
they have decided they are going tointrude upon the making of the cinematic representation
of this story that really happened bykilling people either directly or indirectly associated with

(01:06:24):
the production to somehow halt the productionor punish the people that have done it.
And here I thought that, youknow, if anybody was going to
be a fan of horror movies,it was going to be Satan. You
know that the Devil is like,sure, go on out there and you
know, spread my message and youknow, glorify me as this incredibly powerful,

(01:06:45):
evil, wicked creature. I mean, I would think that the Devil
would be really really happy with theExorcist scaring people, even though the Exorcist
a lot of people seem to missthe other part, which is the fact
that that's the original left behind.That is evangelical propaganda designed not to scare

(01:07:10):
you to death, but rather toscare you into your nearest church, preferably
a Catholic one, but scare youinto church. And that was the intent
of William Peter Bladdie when he wrotethat book, and then when he produced
the film and wrote the screenplay,that was his intent. But you take
all of that stuff together, youknow, people, again, does it

(01:07:31):
make sense that the devil would wantto kill people in making the scariest fucking
movie of all time? No,it seems more like he would be wanting
to kill people that were making biblicalepics. They glorify God rather than sort
of you know this commercial for youknow, the devil killing people and you

(01:07:51):
know, sexually assaulting a twelve yearold girl with a crucifix. I mean,
it's it doesn't make a lot ofsense, but people like those simple
ideas, Oh this is scary andit's evil, and it's it's there's that
mystique. And the Exorcist is theone that did it first, and I
think did it last. That's awesome. I grew up, I grew up

(01:08:14):
in a Catholic household, so likemovies like that, no, no,
no, no, no, theywere not allowed. I honestly did not
watch The Exorcist from beginning to endstraight through until maybe four or five years
ago. Really, I've seen it. I've seen it dozens and dozens of

(01:08:34):
times, but only in parts.Like I would just be flipping through the
channel and it was on, andI would catch it like halfway in between
and watch it until, you know, I was called to do something or
something came up. So I actuallysat down one day, I'm like,
I'm bored, I have nothing todo. Let me look through oh the
Exorcist. Let me fucking watch thisthing. And I enjoyed it. I

(01:09:00):
thought it was a good film,um because I love horror movies. But
I think we touched on it inthe beginning. So many horror movies anymore
are just rehashes or just remakes ofearlier ones. Or you can see like
sometimes you can sit there and pickout like oh that's from the Exorcist,
Oh that's from Poltergeist. Oh that'sfrom Okay, I see where it's coming

(01:09:23):
from. And that was pretty muchgiven the time frame when it was made.
That was an original story, likeokay, great, this is this
is pretty good. I like this. And seeing the Wuigi board in it,
that was great because so many peopleattribute the Wuiji boards, you know,
darker reputation with the Exorcist, thewhole what like fifty three seconds or

(01:09:47):
something that it's in right, that'sthat's the the catalyst that made it evil.
U So yeah, ahead, No, I didn't mean to cut you
off. I'm sorry. I wasjust going to say, there is the
association with the God of Abraham thatchanges all of that for you know,

(01:10:11):
Joe Walmart. It's the moment thatyou take count Dracula out and we move
out of foggy Transylvania to a housein Georgetown where the beautiful people live and
are perhaps punished for being so beautifuland so progressive. You know, a

(01:10:34):
single woman who has divorced her husbandand is you know, her soul,
bread bread winner is her. Youknow she's a career woman. When you
see the beautiful people being punished,and we can relate to them because their
world looks like our world. Andwhat they're talking about, what they are

(01:10:56):
very much talking about, is duringa time of Vietnam and of Watergate and
of the generation gap. Kennedy isdead, Nixon as a crook. Children
are dodging the draft and they're notserving flag and country, and boys are
growing their hair along and kids aresmoking the cannabis and taking the dreaded lysurgic

(01:11:27):
and protesting and using foul language,and they're down with the establishment. Suddenly,
you know, the Exorcist is talkingabout parents who can't recognize or relate
to their children anymore, who becomethese unrecognizable monsters. Even as you know,

(01:11:50):
we're dealing with the fractured, brokenfamily and the single working mother who's
you know, she's not preparing mealsfor her like a good mom she's she's
got the housekeepers to do that.She's not teaching her daughter as she should.
She has a governess there for allof that. You see people who

(01:12:14):
suddenly are confronted with inexplicable evil andthe only solution is to return to the
old ways, to go back tochurch, to go back to superstition.
Suddenly that resonates with people. Themore we move into a secular world,

(01:12:35):
the more you start seeing you know, fanaticists and you know Trump supporters and
people who are so militant about goingback to very conservative ways. And we
don't want people with different skin colorand different um you know, gender associations
or self identifications, or we don'twant any of that. We want what's

(01:12:59):
in the Bible. And the momentyou start talking about those things in a
serious film, because The Exorcist wasnot a hammer film, it was not
a drive in Dracula film. Itwas a serious film made by a serious
filmmaker, starring serious actors from aserious studio. And it just so happens

(01:13:20):
that the one stage that hosts LindaBlair's character's bedroom, the room in which
all the demonic activity occurs in theExorcism, takes place that one stage mysteriously
catches fire and burns down, andthe night watchman who's watching the sets,
he drops dead, and Max vonsdo the titular exorcist, his brother dies,

(01:13:44):
and Jason Miller's kid is in amotorcycle accident. And most creepily,
Jack mcgowran, who plays a characterwho dies in the movie, he's the
one who's found at the bottom ofthe m street steps with his head turned
around backwards. He dies is immediatelyupon finishing filming. That's some scary shit,
and that doesn't, you know,get into the fact that that was

(01:14:09):
a huge production that was doing specialeffects and things that had never been done
before. Thus the shooting schedule wasnot three months or something, it was
eighteen months. They were filming fora year and a half. And during
a year and a half, somany people are gonna die, so many
things are going to happen. Andyeah, it's creepy that the guy who

(01:14:30):
played Burke Dennings who dies in themovie dies in real life, but he
wasn't found with his head turned aroundbackwards. He died. People die,
It happens. But you spin that, you spin that, and you throw
in the fact that you know theaddress of the building where you're doing the
final edit and sound mix. Thenumber of that building was six six six.

(01:14:53):
Again, it's great PR, man, it's great PR and every bun's
tried to copy it since. Yeah, I just want to say I was
on those steps. I walked allthe way down and walked all the way
up them, which is the longset of steps, so I could see
the house. Awesome, and um, yes, the steps are not right
outside that window. There's no wayyou could jump out that window and fall

(01:15:15):
down those steps, No way,no, no, they built they built
a facade. Yeah. So whenyou watch the when you look at the
movie and the classic iconic image ofMax Vonsido in silhouettes stand there in front
of the house where that light sourceis coming from that's casting the beam upon
him. It's from a part ofthe house that doesn't exist. So when
you see the real townhouse, it'sactually quite small. The most the current

(01:15:41):
owners let me in and I didn'tget to go into the house house,
but I got to, um,you know, dork around on the front
patio there and come inside the gateand it's very very small. It's incredibly
small. Even the roof that yousee in the film is created. There's
a cap which allows Ellen Burston's characterto go and have a scene in the

(01:16:03):
attic early in the film that youcan't have in real life because it's just
this little breakdangle. It's a shoebox. Yeah, it's it's quite small.
I haven't been inside, but I'vebeen outside with the gates open um
to see be able to see thedriveway, the brick driveway. The next
time you go, you'd better letme know because I have been known to

(01:16:24):
do tours of all the shooting locationsfrom the first and third films. So
when you want to do this,it's twenty twenty. Man, the world
could end tomorrow, so we'd bettermake plans. I can have, I
have masks, I can wear amask, I can come. I have
this weekend free. Don't tempt me. It's gonna need to be a weeknight.

(01:16:45):
It's gonna be during the week atleast for the you know something here,
let's talk offline because we can makethis happen. Um. I would
like to say on the subject facemasks, Um, I know that our
mutual friend Coral Pollock was on hereearlier. I don't know if she's still
on um I don't have it withinreach, but she sent me the very
very kind gift of a Mothman facemask that I was waiting for the right

(01:17:10):
occasion to wear it, and whenI finally was able to, it was
It's become like one of my favoritecomfort objects during the pandemic. So Coral,
thank you. I love it.It's so wonderful. That's cool,
very cool. All right, Solet's see we talked about we talked about

(01:17:30):
the enemy Ville horror. We talkedabout the extracist, we talked about the
possession a little bit, the conjuring, the crow, the Crow. What
about twilight Zone the movie? Ohmy god, that's not on my list.
Tell me about that. The twilightZone the movie, and it creates,
it creates this weird connection to DominiqueDunn dying on Poulter guys. So,

(01:17:55):
twilight Zone the movie, this wasa film was released in eighty four,
I want to say, and itwas an anthology series where there were
going to be four directors and eachone did a remake of a classic Twilight
Zone short and the project was sortof spearheaded by Steven Spielberg and John Landis

(01:18:20):
and John Landis is the guy responsiblefor one of my all time favorite horror
films, An American Werewolf in London, and so it hurts to tell the
following story because he directed such aninfluential film that I love and watch every
Halloween. Landis for his first forhis segment in the film, he created

(01:18:45):
his own story and it was theonly segment that was not based on an
existing Twilight Zone episode from the fiftiesor sixties. So in his story,
Vic Morrow TVs. Vic Morrow andthe Hood in my favorite Elvis movie,
King Creole Vic Morrow is this terrible, terrible human being who is racist and

(01:19:15):
xenophobic and sexist and like, he'sjust an awful person. And he's at
a bar getting drunk because he gotpassed over for a promotion and he's yelling
out all sorts of racial, reallyawful things. And what happens is when
he stumbles out of the bar togo to his car, he ends up
walking through several different time periods.He goes through Nazi occupied Poland and he

(01:19:42):
ends up in the Deep Fried Southas a black man who's being pursued by
the KKK. He ends up inVietnam and he goes through these different,
you know, sort of vignettes thatteaches him what it's like when the shoe
is on the other foot, andis you know, because all the best
Twilight Zone episodes were morality tales,he is theoretically either going to learn a

(01:20:09):
lesson by the end or he isgoing to experience some ironic twist fate that
is based upon his own weaknesses andshortcomings as a human being. And what
happened was, during the filming ofthis segment, Landis wanted a sequence where

(01:20:31):
Morrow's character is in Vietnam and heis in the process of fleeing a helicopter
and soldiers who are in pursuit ofhim, and he has the sudden realization
that he is the only person whois able to save these two small Vietnamese

(01:20:57):
children, and so he grabs oneunder each arm and he begins sort of
waiting through knee or thigh deep wateras a helicopter is coming down and shining
light on him. What happened wasthere was a helicopter accident and the copter

(01:21:17):
basically there were some squibs, therewere parts that were supposed to artificially explode,
and the helicopter basically lost its balancefell down into the water and the
blades decapitated Morrow and the one child, whereas the rest the body of the

(01:21:38):
helicopter crushed the second child. Andthis was made all the more tragic based
on the fact that Landis had usedessentially illegal child labor to get around the
very strict California shooting laws that statethat a kid can only be on set
which includes education time and also includesmakeup time. And anyone who's ever been

(01:22:05):
on a film set in the daysof film can tell you there's a reason
why movies, you know, mightonly shoot two pages of a ninety or
a one hundred and twenty minute scripta day. Film is a laborious process,
and so this is why very oftenthere are stand ins used for children,
little people are used for certain shots. There are all sorts of you

(01:22:29):
know, there's all sorts of trickery. And in the age of digital now
it's so easy to you know,shoot somebody against a green screen and proposit
them into another shot, or usedigital face replacement. There's all sorts of
tricks. But back in the earlyeighties those tricks didn't really exist, and
Landis just decided, well, we'llget these two kids. It'll be off

(01:22:50):
the books. You know, we'regoing to pay the mom under the table
and we're going to use these kidsfor these you know. I think it
was like two o'clock in the morningor something that they filmed and this terrible,
tragic accident happened, and it's madeall the more tragic based on the
fact that And I feel terrible evensaying this for anybody who might be tempted

(01:23:13):
to do a very very quick YouTubesearch. But some piece of garbage associated
with Twilight Zone the movie allowed forthe footage that features Morrow's death to be
leaked, and it was shot fromseveral different camera setups so that they could

(01:23:34):
do this big stunt and get allthe angles and really only have to do
it once or maybe twice. Sothere is footage shot from all sorts of
different angles of the helicopter going overand Morrow and the one child being decapitated,
the other child being crushed, andit's it's it's just out there on
the internet, and it's it's horriblethat you can find it, but you

(01:23:56):
can. And ultimately this landis andthe producers, I mean, they never
did any jail time. They hadto pay certain fines. Hollywood has now
become far more strict about child laborlaws as a consequence of Twilight Zone.
The movie. Twilight Zone the movieis a film that, if we want
to call it cursed, it wascursed in the sense that it's the negative

(01:24:21):
press that went on about what Landisdid caused a lot of people to not
want to see the film and forcritics to be predisposed to hate it because
it had you know, why didn'tSpielberg He was a producer. Why did
he allow this to happen? AndSpielberg was Hollywood's golden boy. That's the
year of Indiana Jones and the Templeof Doom. He was like this about

(01:24:44):
the movie, and he said,I didn't do it. I had nothing
to do with it. Shame onyou, John Landis. John Landis's career
never really recovered. I mean hehad he had Beverly Hills Cop after that,
but aside from the two Beverly HillsCops movies that he did during the
eighties, you know, he neverreally recovered from that. And what you

(01:25:10):
now see in the movie when wetalk about compromised version visions based on the
death of key players that film nowhas an artificial ending, or that segment
of the film has an artificial endingthat was not what was written and it
was something else that was shot andrepurposed. Right, So you think this

(01:25:31):
would be the exception to the ruleof there is no bad press. I
think it might be, you know, I mean people still I don't know.
I think that again, twilight Zoneis it horror in the traditional sense.
I don't think that people go intotwilight Zone looking to be scared,

(01:25:54):
despite the fact that there are somegenuinely, genuinely frightening episodes and and some
of the premise, some of theepisodes are just wonderful and creative, but
it's it's a little bit more of, you know, a program based on
the idea of fables than out andout horror. And so I don't know

(01:26:16):
that twilight Zone was ever going tobring in a teenage audience during the era
of Halloween and Friday of the Thirteenthand slumber Party massacre. When you know
those those audiences, you know,they're they're little bit twilight Zone. That
show was shot in black and white. My parents watched that shit. I
don't want to watch that. Jasonvorhees that the new Jason movies in three

(01:26:41):
D. You know, that's whatpeople wanted to see in that era.
So and then I think that,you know, other people were just so
sickened by the fact that, youknow, two children died, and landi
Is never really was like, youknow, I'm sincerely very sorry. He
never had his like sort of youknow, um being being what is the

(01:27:03):
word I'm looking for. He neverreally humbled himself before the family or the
press or the media in general ina way that I think people would have
found satisfying and said, well,he shows remorse. Um, we never
really got that. But the interestingconnection to Poultergeist is the fact that um

(01:27:25):
John Landis was irresponsible on Twilight Zonefollowing American Werewolf in London, which co
stars Griffin Done, whose sister DominiqueDone was in Poultergeist and murdered by her
boyfriend. And Poultergeist was probably ghostdirected by one Steven Spielberg. Oh curses

(01:27:55):
with conspiracy theories. It's a man, It's all connected, It's all connected,
all of it. Holy shit,Oh my god, that's pretty cool.
I Twilight Zone. I mean Iused to watch the old episodes.
I love the old episodes. Um, my favorite Twilight Zone episode. I

(01:28:18):
forget his name. Oh my god. Uh Mick from the Rocky Movies.
Um Burgess Meredith. Yes, Yes, the whole thing with him reading,
just wanting to read a book,and then finally at the end he gets
the peace and quiet and then hebreaks his glasses. I don't know why.
I know I can relate because Ilove to read. I love to

(01:28:41):
sit and read books constantly. Ifyou if you found a way to pay
me just to read books, I'dbe happy for the rest of my life.
Um, so that that episode relatesto me or or I don't know
why, it's just my favorite episode. Uh. My girlfriend and I were
both separated from our respective children duringthe first four months of the pandemic,

(01:29:05):
and you know, we were weleaned on one another through that quite a
bit because we were the only peoplethat either one knew who understood what the
other was experiencing. Right And youknow, I remember very distinctly telling her,

(01:29:25):
you know, this is like timeenough at last, this is like
the this is the Twilight Zone episoderight now, because you know, we
we don't have to do like sortof like kid duties right now. There's
no homework there's no picking kids upafter work. There's you know, we

(01:29:46):
don't have any of that. We'vegot time right now to you know,
I'm out of practice on my skateboard, or I'm out of practice playing the
bass guitar or something. I cando that right now, but it's not
fun because I don't have my kid, you know. So she was.
I told her about that exact episodebecause she had never heard of it and

(01:30:10):
she had never seen it, andum, it was. It was wonderful
because when I got to the endand I told her the plot twist,
which I won't spoil for anyone whohasn't seen it, she just said,
yeah, that's really fucked up.And I loved it. It was a
it was a wonderful moment. Yeah, I mean that's that's yeah, that's
my favorite episode of all time.But I used to love Twilight Zone,

(01:30:32):
and I do remember the movie.It wasn't a big fan of the movie,
just I don't know why. Itjust didn't for me. It didn't
have that same magic of the original. Serious. I contend, though,
that George Miller's remake of Nightmare attwenty five thousand feet is terrifying. I
think that that that that transcends theoriginal episode. Yeah, by a signific

(01:31:00):
to get him out. And it'sprobably John Lithgow's like most crazy batshit in
say manic performance that he ever did. Yeah, that one and like the
I mean, the two stories tostick out, that one especially because with
the gremlin on the plane, Imean, that's just it sticks out to
you. Especially the gremlin. Imean because when you compare it to the

(01:31:21):
the William Shatner episode with the guythat looked more like an ewok than than
anything scary. Um, but hehad he had a full body palm going
on. Yes, Okay, that'sa nice way to say it. It
looked like the pubic carre got outof control, just went all over the

(01:31:41):
place. Um. But then theother story about the child with the godlike
power, Um, that was kindof freaky. Those two are the stories
that stand out to me the mostwhen I remember the film. So I
I have the opposite opinion of theepisode you're talking about, which was called
It's a Good Life. I havethe opposite opinion because on the one hand,

(01:32:08):
I really like Joe Dante and Ithink that I love the howling.
It's not an American werewolf in London. But I do. I do love
the Howling. I love Gremlins,which I just got to show my son
for the first times. Wonderful.But I think that he did some incredible
visual stuff in that segment that verymuch brought a Looney Tunes, you know,

(01:32:36):
series of cartoons that a kid wouldbe watching old repeats of and that
would sort of shape his reality andhow he would construct everything. A kid
that can do anything with his mindis going to shape his own reality,
and in this case, he's watchingold Looney Tunes cartoons, right. But
where I don't like it is thefact that it's very fun, and it's

(01:32:59):
very silly, and it's very intentionallyover the top. The original episode was
none of those things. It hasa young Bill Mooney in it who has
gone on to be like in somany different sci fi movies and TV shows,
and he's a writer for comic books. He's on one of my favorite
shows, Babylon Five. But thisyoung Bill Mooney kid who can do anything

(01:33:25):
with his mind and just also happensto be a sociopath, and there's no
reasoning with him, there is noreaching his softcore because he does not have
one, and he has laid wasteto presumably the entire world, and all

(01:33:45):
that exists is this undefined, unnamedsmall town that is essentially a ghost town
and only a few families live init. Because every time this kid gets
pissed off, sends you to thecorn field, and he keeps sending people
to the cornfield, and so everyone'swalking around in this like heightened state of

(01:34:09):
nearer hysteria all the time, andit's terrifying. That kid is terrifying in
that. And I think that themovie goes it leans into the humor more
cool. So I think I'm gonnawe can we can kind of slow down
with this segment and go into somethingI wanted to talk about a little bit

(01:34:30):
because UM recent event that happened umum, the passing of of of a
great man that I think we bothhighly admired, Um James, Randy James,
the amazing Randy, So I actuallywanted to talk I usually do a
segment where it's the book of theweek, um, and I usually pick

(01:34:51):
a book that has that I've reador at least partially read and gone through
and it's really helped with the workI do, and I can recommend because
I don't recommend books that I don'tread obviously, because you know, what's
the point, Um, But inlight of recent events, because Randy did

(01:35:14):
pass away like two days ago,three days ago, I think UM big
influence. I mean you can saywith confidence that he was literally the father
of the modern skeptical movement. There'splenty of people that came before him.
Harry Houdini was one of my idols. I mean definitely did a lot with

(01:35:35):
with UM, showing people that psychicpowers aren't real, even though he really
wanted to find one. M James. Randy was the one that really organized
everything UM, got it into anorganization, got people together, and was
not He was firm, he wasblunt, he was forward. But when

(01:35:59):
you met him in per fucking sweetestmotherfucker ever that you would meet. I
had the pleasure of meeting him UMfor the first time in twenty sixteen,
and I could not believe how LikeI don't really say this too much of
people, I don't, I reallydon't use the word sweet, but this

(01:36:20):
man was sweet. I mean hewas you couldn't help but want to hug
him, and he was all forit. I mean, you asked him
if you could give him a hug. He said, absolutely, come on
in here, and then he actuallyflirted with my wife, which was great.
He didn't he didn't worry about doingit in front of me. I

(01:36:40):
mean, great guy. But um, I know that you had posted something
about UM about his passing that youdidn't have the opportunity to meet him,
so I was wondering if you would. You know, what, what does
James Randy mean to you? Imean, I know I'm putting on a

(01:37:01):
spot. No, it's it's it'sokay, it's just it's it's a little
hard to articulate. I mean,it's it's very hard to articulate because he
was he was someone who obviously,you know, is a giant and has
this level of importance that you know, we really can't overstate. But by

(01:37:23):
that same token, he just seemedlike a really cool dude. And you
know, I think that the bestskeptics are cool dudes and cool dude debts.
I mean, people who aren't outto mock other people, who aren't
out to um make someone who believesUM in certain belief systems look foolish.

(01:37:53):
UM or who don't exploit other peoplewho you know, don't don't don't think
this same way. He just seemedlike an incredibly cool dude who would have
been all the happier in life ifsomeone could have brought him something that you
know, could not be debunked andwas what it was allegedly supposed to represent.

(01:38:23):
I mean, I grew up,I grew up without religion, and
so I never really had a pointwhere I became an atheist. I sort
of just eased into atheism from agnosticism. But what I did have, and
I held very close to myself,was I had the Lockness Monster, and

(01:38:46):
to a lesser degree, I hadBigfoot, and I had Mothman, and
I had Goatman and the demon Catand the true story of the Exorcist and
all of these things that offer manyof the same things that religion offer.
And that is the sense that thereis more to this world than what we
can see and we can classify andwe can put in a box. That

(01:39:13):
there is magic in this world.And in the case of believing in the
Lockedest Monster and the belief in God, both require faith. They require a
certain dismissal of data that does notfit with our preconceived ending. It requires

(01:39:35):
us to perhaps ignore pesky data andpesky truth that gets in the way of
the thing that we believe in,and to perhaps cherry pick certain you know,
cherry picking science. It's creationism.It's finding the stuff that works to
support your case and forgetting about theother stuff or just ignoring it. But

(01:39:57):
when I became from being a devoutbeliever to realizing that I did not believe,
that made the luckness monster more interestingto me, because it took on
a whole new sociological level that itdidn't previously have. It took on a

(01:40:18):
whole new psychological level that it didn'tpreviously have. And that was the time
that I began seeking people like JamesRandy and also seeking people like some of
our mutual acquaintances like one Ben Radford, and people like Penn and Teller and

(01:40:39):
Joe Nicol And you know, Istopped reading The forty en Times first because
now I had to read the newissue of Skeptical Inquirer. It opened my
mind to so many facets that I'dnever considered, and that this world is
actually more magical for the act thatwe are able to believe in the lockness

(01:41:03):
monster and build a case for it, but that it isn't real, and
that you know, sort of knowinghow the magic trick is done makes you
appreciate the trick in a way thatyou didn't before. And I guess you
know this is all just a verylong way of saying that, you know,

(01:41:26):
we have very influential people and ithurts to see them leave this,
you know, this mortal realm.But it makes it all the more important
that everybody that appreciated what he andwhat others do try to continue that work

(01:41:49):
and try to most importantly educate people, because I mean, we're living in
a time right now, in particularin late October of twenty twenty, where
we are, at least those ofyou who are listening right now that are
in North America. We are anation that is divided, and so much

(01:42:14):
of what divides us doesn't just comedown to our core belief systems, but
it comes down to misinformation and thatwe are receiving dangerous misinformation from sources that
we should be able to trust,that we have been taught to trust,
and it's dangerous when we just acceptit without ever questioning it. Being a

(01:42:39):
skeptic does not mean, you know, I'm going to prove that you're wrong.
It's it's about examining the evidence,extraordinary claims and all of that.
With great power comes great responsibility.And again, I think what I'm trying
to say is it's it's our jobto be inspired and to carry that on.
That's awesome. I love how youthrough the comic book reference in there.

(01:43:00):
That was great. That was awesome. Yeah, I mean everything you
said I totally agree with. UM. Tell me about when you met him.
I want to hear this. Um, Well, I met him.
It was it was one of thosetimes when it was like I was,
I was really getting into Skeptical Inquirerand the Center for Inquiry as in like

(01:43:23):
I've known about them for quite sometime by the by by then and this
is twenty sixteen and I'm talking aboutso, I had read the magazine,
I was subscribing to it. Ihad known about it for a few years.
Where I discovered it. I actuallymy gateway was ben Ravortum because I
had written a book, a selfpublic's book, like a literal like I

(01:43:45):
wrote it. I printed it outwith some friends and we actually sat at
a table and and stapled it alltogether. Cool photography, I mean,
very old school, very grassroots kindof thing, and a friend of mine
had sent Ben Rafford a copy ofit without me knowing, and that's how
we started talking, and he gaveme some criticism, good criticism on it,

(01:44:09):
but loved the book. It wasall about photography and a ghost,
anomalies and shit like that. Sothat led me to Joe Nicol and like
this whole world of skepticism where Ihad no idea before, and it led
me to James Randy even though Ihad seen Randy beforehand, but I didn't

(01:44:30):
realize like who I was watching.So it was like little excerpts where you
know, you see the old Ithink, honestly, when I thought about
it, I think my first experiencewith James Randy was his appearance on I
think it was a Johnny Carson wherethey had the the guy that dressed like

(01:44:55):
a kung fu master and did thewhole like pages of phone book that he
could he could make the pages ofphone book go, and Randy put styrofoam
pellets all around it or straws,and the guy suddenly couldn't do it.
And I remember that, like,holy shit, this this old guy with

(01:45:17):
a bear just just totally destroyed thiskong Fu master, because I didn't realize,
you know, what a kong Fumister was actually was. So I
think that was my first time,my first experience with James Randy. And
then once all of this, whenI got more involved with Skeptical Inquirer,
I realized like, oh, youknow, there's the James Randy Educational Foundation

(01:45:41):
and the million Dollar Challenge and Igot into that. I actually wrote a
few articles for UM the j REFwebsite, so it was really cool.
But uh Ssicon was coming up twentysixteen. It was in Las Vegas.
It was the I think it wasthe first major conference they were doing in

(01:46:01):
Vegas, and they announced James Randywas going to be like the main guest,
like the big deal guest, andI sat down my wife. I
mean, I don't make a lotof money. We don't make a lot
of money. So it was like, I really want to I want to
go out there. I want togo out there because this is a person
that like, this is phenomenal,Like I have I have Flynn Flamm one

(01:46:27):
of my favorite books of all time. I really really want to meet him.
And I almost feel embarrassed to sayit, but it was like he
was getting up there, you know, and it was like, I don't
know how much longer he's going tobe with us. I really really want
to meet this guy like this isthis is bucket list like number one.

(01:46:48):
And we saved up the money foralmost a year. We saved and saved,
and we were able to pay toget out there. And one of
the things that I noticed on whatI was following him on social media was
that he said, if you wantto hug, all you have to do

(01:47:08):
is ask. And I remember thatand as soon as I got there I
saw him, I geeked out,totally geeked out, and then once I
calmed down, I walked over tohim and I said, hey, I'm
a big fan. I love yourwork. I would really really like to
give you a hug. And he'slike, well, bring it all in

(01:47:30):
and he put his arms up.I mean, and the guy was literally
four feet tall. So gave mea hug and immediately said, hey,
your wife's hot. Wow, thisguy's hitting him my wife. Okay,
great, but we talked, mwent to a lecture later on, he
sat next to us. It wasgreat. I was able to I'm gonna

(01:47:55):
I'm totally gonna show this off likeautographed my book, which I'm very proud
of. Nice and I mean,we had a luncheon where I got to
set sit next to him again,sit at the table with him and talk
to him. And I mean,you see him on TV. You see
the videos because they're they're constantly usedwith like like psychic stings or debunking psychics

(01:48:19):
and all their paranormal claims, andyou see that he's pretty like straightforward,
he's blunt, he's very serious.But when you met him in person,
nicest guy you could ever want tomeet, very sweet, very considerate,
very courteous, um and just simpleto talk to. He talked to you

(01:48:43):
like he you were his best friend, even if you just met him.
And the last time I met him, um was twenty eighteen, I think
because the twenty nineteen conference was canceledum. But twenty eighteen I was out
of Vegas again I was able tomeet him again and he was in a

(01:49:03):
wheelchair. Walked up to him.I said, hey, mister Randy,
do you mind if I take aselfie? And he looked me dead in
the eye and said, hey,Kenny, of course, And that's awesome.
Dad blew me away because I wasn'twearing a name tag. He remembered
my name and we've only met fora few minutes before, And just saying

(01:49:27):
that almost made me cry because Iwas like, this guy is someone that
I look up to so much andhe remembered my name. Holy shit,
Like this, this is amazing.That's really awesome that you've got an autograph
book, but the fact that you'vegot that story is ten times more awesome.
Um, you know, it's I'veI've reached a point where I've stopped

(01:49:47):
asking people for autographs because I feelthat if I can have an encounter with
someone and be able to tell astory like that, then that's that's significantly
that that that's really what the thingis all about, you know, meeting
this individual. I think that's awesomethat you have that story. I'm so
jealous because I had hoped that,running in so many of the same circles

(01:50:09):
and with so many you know,friends in common, that at some point
i'd get to meet him. Youand your wife obviously, you know,
you took a pilgrimage out there andit was a well timed one. Yeah,
I've got certain people that I've beenyou know, in my bucket list.
You know, I've seen Paul McCartneyand I've seen John Williams conduct and

(01:50:29):
I'm like, you know, thesepeople are are living legends who are not
long for this planet. So Ithink that's incredibly incredibly cool that that you
got to do that. I I'mjust kind of at a loss for words
because I wish, oh, I'dhad the opportunity. But yeah, I
mean, that's that's the story you'regoing to continue telling for the rest of

(01:50:53):
your life. And that's that's amazing, especially when somebody that inspires you.
And um, you know, I'veI've had many instances where I've met people
from you know, movies or variousthings that I liked, um or that
we're hugely influential to me, Andum, you realize really quickly that celebrities

(01:51:15):
are just people. Some of themare really cool, like James Randy sounds
like he was. Others are realfucking assholes that can be incredibly disenchanting.
So you got an extra awesome storybecause it was very very sweet Boom,
But I understand where you're coming fromand because of that, Because of that,

(01:51:39):
like I always encourage people like ifyou if you had the opportunity.
If the opportunity presents itself, dowhat you can to make it happen.
Yeah, you know, like don'tdon't think, oh, you know what,
so you know, I'll have nextyear or maybe I'll do this there.
There might not be next year,Like if I have an opportunity to

(01:52:02):
meet somebody in person, like likewhat you were talking about, having the
experience rather than the autograph. Yes, I totally agree with that. I'm
on board with that. The autographis second or third nature, Like that's
not important. It's important when Iget there and I had the experience of
actually meeting the person that I wantto meet, I'd rather hang out with

(01:52:26):
somebody. I felt that way withJoe Nicole. You know, I met
Joe Nicole. I reached out tohim because he had this skeptical museum up
at his at the Center for Inquiryin Buffalo, and I wanted to I
wanted to see it, and Ireach out to him and like surprisingly,
he was like, come on up, come on up, I'll take you

(01:52:48):
around, and he gave me likea whole I spent the day with Joe
Nicole, and to me, thatwas mind blowing because like this is a
person that I looked up to,and he's giving me a personal tour of
everything that's on he has on display, which was fascinating. Ben Radford.
I've known Ben for oh my god, like fifteen fifteen years. I've met

(01:53:13):
him once. One time we've metin person, and that's because he came
out to Washington, DC to doa presentation for a skeptics group and I
was able to make it down there. And we have like two pictures of
us together, and that's it.But we're we're good friends. I consider
him a great friend, you know, and we worked together a lot.
We I talked to him at leastonce a week at least and go back

(01:53:40):
and forth. So if there's anopportunity to actually meet somebody like him or
any of the people that I admire, I say, go for it,
you know, don't hesitate. Yeah, I agree. And Ben and Celestia
and I were supposed to meet uplast year and it fell through on my

(01:54:01):
end at the last minute, whichsucked, um, But that's something I
would definitely like to correct. AndJoe Nicole is another person who is on
my sort of you know, heroworship list in terms of you know,
skeptical investigators. Um, he's somebodythat that you know, this just the

(01:54:23):
passing of James Randy is making mego okay, all right, So Joe
Nichol and Michael Schermer and Adrian Shineand there are a couple of people I
need to meet and you know atleast be able to go Hey, um,
thanks for thanks for influencing me.And I mean, I mean we
can we can totally drop names here. But like even Celesti Celestia Award,

(01:54:45):
not even but Celestie Award. Iwas so excited to meet her because she
came out the Icon. I knowshe was having a rough time, she
had just had a baby, andshe was there and I know I was
bugging the shit out of her.I know it, but I was so
excited to see her and to meether for the first time, even though

(01:55:05):
she was trying to get around toother places to tend lectures. We got
to talk for a few minutes,and then the following year I got to
hang out with her a little bit. M Pascal Pascal, I haven't haven't
met him yet, but I wantto. He's actually helped me with some
of my work. I did anarticle about um Elvis Presley appearing in Home

(01:55:29):
Alone. I went through a holeof thing with that, and he actually
helped me a lot with that.So like, he's another person that I
would really really like to meet,not only to just meet because I you
know, I listened to him wheneverreason the podcast, but the guy helped
me. So like anyone that helpsme, I feel really appreciative of and

(01:55:51):
I really want to meet him andhang out with him, you know,
have a beer or you know whateverand do that. But yeah, I
mean several people, especially when Igo to science conferences, it's so cool
just to see how real people Ithink you mentioned it, like even though
there are celebrities, to us,they're just real people, you know.

(01:56:13):
And I've hung out with Bill andI, which was like mind blowing,
just sat down having a drink andtalking shit with them. You know,
signs shit, but talking shit withthem. And Susan Garbick, I mean,
she's a good friend of mine,Mark Edward. These are all people
that have taught me a lot ofstuff and to be able to hang out
with them is wonderful. So Idefinitely encourage anyone if you have the opportunity,

(01:56:40):
do not hesitate. Make it happen. Make it happen, because there
are a lot of you know,I've always sort of argued that I think
people who go to movie conventions oryou know, sci fi cons or whatever
it is, and they stand inline to pay some celebrity fifty dollars one

(01:57:06):
hundred dollars, two hundred dollars topose with them for a picture. I've
pissed off more than one person bysaying that I think that paying for a
celebrity's autograph and then bragging about iton Facebook is like going to a hooker

(01:57:28):
and telling all your friends that shejust got laid. I mean, it's
it doesn't make a lot of senseto me. This person would have nothing
to do with you if you didnot hand them money. And when I
was doing the tour of film festivalsin twenty eighteen for Butterfly Kisses, I

(01:57:50):
went to a lot of horror consand I met just since I was you
know, in some cases I wasconsidered talent because my film was playing.
I would get to go to certaindinners or certain luncheons or whatever, and
there would be various actors or filmmakers, some of whom were from you know,

(01:58:12):
movies that I really really liked,and it was very disappointing to kind
of walk the floor before I metsome of these people and just kind of
like as they're sitting at their respectivebooths with their and they always have a
handler with them, and that handleris the one that makes sure they get
their lunch and they get to taketheir smoke break every fifteen minutes, and

(01:58:36):
you know, the handler is thereto show them around and take care of
them. And you see in somecases these horror icons who are just like
you know, sometimes pissing their handleror their agent off because they don't give
a shit. There's a kid herethat knows that I was in Texas Chainsaw
masker two, come here, let'stake a picture, you know, or

(01:58:58):
just just willing to talk to anybodyand seeming very genuine about it. Then
you got the people who are justsitting there at their boot doing this on
the phone and flicking through and thenthey see an object move through their line
of sight, they look up.You can walk up to fund. They
didn't go back to reading. Butthe minute you approach with an open wild

(01:59:19):
oh hi, oh my god,yes, thank you for condent, you
know they're actors. That's what they'redoing. They're acting, and it's so
I always have felt like that experienceis something that you can find. You
just have to go out there andmeet people, whether that is by creating

(01:59:39):
something of your own or by youknow, becoming you know you interview people,
or whatever that is. Find yourway to meet people. Don't pay
for a fucking autograph or a Facebookpicture from someone who literally would not give
you the time of day or asksecurity to remove you if you came up
and try to force your conversation onthem. It's like talking to about girl

(02:00:00):
the strip club and you're not buyinga three dollars drink, you know,
bouncers. I agree, I agree, And that's I guess that's why I
like the science conventions I've been to. I mean I haven't been to a
lot. Admittedly I've been to skepticgroups, but Psicon is the big conference
that I've been to, and everyone, everyone has been so nice, like

(02:00:26):
literally, and this is a storythat I love to tell. So I'm
I'm at the Oh my god,to twenty seventeen, I think Psicon and
Bill Nye shows up unannounced. Okay, I know he was there. I
saw him. I actually was partof a big conversation with like six or

(02:00:47):
seven other people. And then thenext morning he shows up in the morning,
the poor guy. I felt badfor him, but he had just
woken up. He was just tryingto get coffee and I here comes me,
totally keeking out because I've watched himas a kid, like I'm like,
oh my god, is Bill nI I'm totally like, walk up

(02:01:12):
and I say, can I canI get a picture with you? I
absolutely love your work. You inspiredme great. And I know the guy
is tired. I know it.I know it, but this was like
the only opportunity that I had.And without skipping a beat, even though
he had a tired look on hisface, He's like, Okay, you

(02:01:33):
know, come here, come herelike that to me with with your what
you're talking about, that to meis more than anything like that's worth that's
that's worth more than paying like fivehundred bucks for your you know picture with
all the Avengers um that. Becausethe guy was tired, but he still

(02:01:55):
was like, Okay, you knowwhat you're you're a fan, you appreciate
my work. I'm I'm gonna helpyou. And that probably raised your opinion
of him in the later run becauseyou have that human moment with him,
and so yeah, that that's avery very very cool thing. Oh man,
all right, I have kept youfor two hours, so I'm gonna

(02:02:16):
give you the opportunity. Please promotewhatever you have coming up, you have
anything coming up, please feel freeto promote that crap out of what you
got. Well for anybody who's watchingthis live or may watch this later today,
October twenty third, in the Yearof Our Lord twenty twenty. This

(02:02:38):
week is actually the seventh anniversary ofmy first feature film being released. It's
called Roulette. I don't know ifyou could see the cover without the glare,
but Roulette is available streaming on AmazonPrime. So we should a happy
birthday or support the dying physical mediaformat. And today is also ironically the

(02:03:01):
two year anniversary of the release ofmy film Butterfly Kisses Um. This is
also available in physical media or youcan stream it on Amazon Prime. Kenny
did this incredible painting. I knowwe talked about it at the top,
but this was just one of thecoolest things that anybody did or created as

(02:03:24):
an offshoot um of something that Idid, and I just I find that
endlessly humbling, and thank you.You didn't know. You didn't know me
except for a couple appearances I didon a on a podcast that we've both
been on, and you made thisand reached out to me, and it
was just that. I thank you. I don't know. I don't know
if you can see it, likeI'm holding it up and I'm looking at

(02:03:46):
the background, you might be ableto see it, but you can see
the slight slight Uh oh wait therethere, it's a little bit better.
Yes, I see the indentation thereright here, the with the with the
shadow guy. Oh I love that. That is Oh that is awesome.
That is awesome. That's coming toyou. We we have to we have

(02:04:09):
to get together so I can givethis to you. You've got to,
sir, and then I owe youbeers and we've got to do this.
See anything, we will figure outa place and just to be safe.
So you're saying you don't want tohave beers, Well no I do.
I do. I totally do becausegeeking me out, well I should hope

(02:04:30):
so so um. Also, asI pedaled my wares um the October twenty
three, this isn't just the twoyear anniversary of my movie Butterfly Kids is
coming out, which, by theway, if you like skeptical inquiry,
this movie is about skeptical inquiry,check it out. M October twenty three
is also the two year anniversary ofthis book. It's called The Altered Wake.
I did not write this. MeganMorgan wrote. This came out the

(02:04:51):
same day that my movie came out, and she's my girlfriend and she's amazing,
So check out The Altered Wake.She also contributed a story to this
book. It's called In the Blinkof an Eye. This is one of
the most flattering things that's ever happenedas a result of something I made.
This is an anthology of short stories, all based around the mythology of butterfly

(02:05:14):
kisses, and so it's really coolto see all these very talented authors,
of whom Megan is one, whojust came up with their own story and
played in my sandbox. And it'sinsanely awesome. So please support support dying
physical media, as I said,at a time when a lot of things
are dying and it's sad and scary. If you're interested in reading any of

(02:05:36):
my writing about film related matters,go to ain't at Cool News, where
I write as Eric Christopher Myers orEKM, typically on the topics of franchise
history and genre theory. You canfind me on all of the various social
media platforms. Make sure please ifyou check out one of my films,

(02:05:57):
or you read one of Megan's books, or if you are listening or watching
to an awesome show like this ora podcast like Squaring the Strange or anything
that is helping you cope with theterrible, terrible trauma that is twenty twenty.
That you are liking, you aresharing, your subscribing, your leaving

(02:06:19):
reviews, you're giving five star ratings. Make sure you do that for this
show and so many other shows andthings, because that is what changes and
influences the algorithms. That's what pushesunique, independent voices out into new venues
and audiences that perhaps wouldn't have heardof them before. So make sure you're

(02:06:41):
telling everybody about Kenny Biddle's show andthat you're sharing it on your Facebook.
I mean, honestly, this showwas born of the pandemic. I mean,
I got people were bored. Mywife and I actually started doing live
shows where we just went on wehad no idea what to talk about.
We just went on started talking andlike the idea of Blossom, where I

(02:07:06):
was like, oh, I cando this and just just do a live
show and let people ask me questions. Let's, you know, put me
on the spot and see how fuckedup I can make it this show and
it turned out pretty good. Imean now it's weekly, and yeah,
I mean, support this medium,support these these things that come up.

(02:07:28):
I love seeing how a film,an independent film, especially an independent film
that comes along that inspires shit likethis. I mean this is I love
the movie. I thought it wasgreat. I really did. I'm not
kissing your ass. I have nothingto gain by kissing your ass. I
liked the movie and it inspired me. Hey, I'm gonna do something about

(02:07:54):
it. I don't paint like I'venever been trained to paint, and it
just, you know, some ofthis stuff just comes up. So I'm
amazed that it actually turned out likehalf season. So do it. Watch
these films. Support the local medium, or support the mediums that come out
because it's too much as going todigital. Support the the people that make

(02:08:18):
this stuff and make more. Makemore. Eric, I will make more,
make you make more, and everybodythat's watching, go make something.
Come on, make something, makesomething. Stop watching fucking tiger king.
Go make something. Oh my god, there's something productive with yourself. Yeah,
go do something. Vote. Votefucking book. Read a fucking book.

(02:08:41):
Read, read a fucking book,and then when you're done reading a
fucking book, go vote. Pleasevote. Voting is important. I voted
my movie, voted votes. It'snever been more important. As I told
my eight year old, you areliving in Star Wars right now. So

(02:09:01):
uh, it's it's a real importanttime in history. All right, very
nice. I'll show you. I'llshow you mine comparing the Oh. Oh
can you see that? Oh lookat that. That's I liked it.
That is our friend blink Man.Nice, given the wave, blink Man.
Awesome, very all right. SoI'm going to I'm gonna put you

(02:09:24):
in the background for a couple ofminutes, um, and then wrap up
my show. Nobody puts baby inthe corner. We're in the background.
Okay, Sorry, I'm sorry,good God, put me please please now
I have no reply to that.Yeah, please put me in the background.
Thanks everybody. Awesome. All right. So I'm gonna put you in

(02:09:45):
the background here and then close outmy show. Thank you everyone for spending
your Friday night with us. UM. I appreciate it. I know Eric
appreciates it. It was awesome.UM, the discussion was really cool.
Loved it. I learned at littlebit because I didn't know half the shit
about these movies that he did.So really awesome. Coming up? Any

(02:10:07):
events coming up? I don't havemuch Saturday Night with Tomorrow Night three Tortured
Souls another podcast that I do withDave Schumacher and Tim Vickers. We're gonna
be talking about We're gonna be talkingabout how to differentiate between good sources and
bad sources of information, things thatwe do, things that we look for

(02:10:31):
to validate, whether it's good informationor bad information, like like rumors or
hype or embellishments versus facts and figuresand stats. So it should be a
good show, really cool for otherthan that, I think. On a
let's say November November eleventh, Iwill be a guest on a podcast called

(02:10:56):
Paranormal Brew. Paranormal Brew from sevenpm Eastern to eight ish, and it's
a paranormal show. We're gonna betalking about a few things, mostly skeptical
stuff. We'll see how that goesand that's it. If you have a
paranormal slash science slash skeptical event that'scoming up in the future that is COVID

(02:11:20):
compliant, let me know. I'dlike to be a part of it.
If it's online, if you're doingpanel discussions or whatever, I love doing
that kind of stuff. I lovetalking, obviously, because I do a
lot of live podcast every Friday night, so I love to talk. Let
me know I'd love to be apart of it. If you're looking for

(02:11:41):
more information about spooky topics with askeptical slant to it, my column called
a Closer Look for the Skeptical InquirerOnline is available. I have forty some
articles up there already. Take alook. See what's coming up. If
you're into T shirts like I am, please visit my tea spring door,

(02:12:01):
which I didn't put the commercial up, but it's scientifics skepticism. Look for
that. Plenty of designs, lotsof designs. Take a look. The
money from that goes back into myresearch, so it's not really like pocket
money. It actually goes back intobuying equipment that ghost owners use or other

(02:12:22):
people use, so I can takeit apart, figure out what's going on.
It helps me attend events to collectdata. It helps me keep the
lights on here to keep this podcastgoing. So any little bit helps,
I appreciate it, and that's it. So with that, I'm going to
queue up my video and I'm goingto give my tagline and we're going to

(02:12:46):
be out of here. So neverstop learning, and I'll see you next week.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The Skeptical Help Bar - Erik Kristopher Myers