Speaker 1: It's five thirty two a m. In Honolulu, and you're
Speaker 1: listening tonight. Call. Good evening, everybody, and welcome tonight Call.
Speaker 1: I am one of your three night callers, Molly Lambert,
Speaker 1: and I'm here today with Tess Lynch and Emily Yoshida
Speaker 1: in New York. This week's podcast is brought to you
Speaker 1: by Lisa Mattresses. Welcome back, everybody. Hey, so, um, I
Speaker 1: want to start off just to get us rolling at
Speaker 1: the beginning, because I think we I think maybe when
Speaker 1: Claire was on, we kind of off handedly mentioned send
Speaker 1: us ghost stories, and we got a lot of people
Speaker 1: sending us a ghost store is so thank you, we
Speaker 1: feed us more ghost story Um, so thank you. But
Speaker 1: but I'm very impressed with everybody's stories and also jealous.
Speaker 1: But I feel like we can get into that in
Speaker 1: a little bit. Yeah, well we I set this up
Speaker 1: as a transitional episode. Uh connector last week with the
Speaker 1: Atomic Museum that I wanted you guys to watch Haunters
Speaker 1: The Art of the Scare. Yeah, the documentary on Netflix
Speaker 1: about people who are are obsessed with haunted houses. Because
Speaker 1: I thought, hey, it's the beginning of spring, let's I'll
Speaker 1: watch a documentary about Halloween. Well, you kind of you
Speaker 1: sold it strangely because you said it was about people
Speaker 1: who are obsessed with haunted houses. But these are people
Speaker 1: who actually their life is being scarers or whatever. That's what. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they are. They are the They are the men and
Speaker 1: women behind the curtain and behind the bowls of blood
Speaker 1: and whatnot. And the stories. Tell me. Tell me your
Speaker 1: reactions to Haunters the Art of the Scare. Oh, I
Speaker 1: loved it so much. I was. I watched the first
Speaker 1: ten minutes. I was like, I'm not going to finish
Speaker 1: this documentary. But you have to kind of like immerse
Speaker 1: yourself in it for a bit. You have to like
Speaker 1: marinate in it, and it gets super good. I felt
Speaker 1: like it reminded me a lot of Cannibal cop in
Speaker 1: that even if you don't think you'll enjoy it, you
Speaker 1: you will if you give it a chance. Or maybe not.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Emily, Um, I mean, I am fascinated
Speaker 1: with this stuff and um in addition to having done
Speaker 1: a lot of the haunts around uh the l A area, UM,
Speaker 1: I also worked with the writer at the Verge for
Speaker 1: a while who was doing a lot of these experiences
Speaker 1: and like did black Out and all that. So I've
Speaker 1: always been really interested in um and kind of what
Speaker 1: the latest is an experiential scares? I really so, I
Speaker 1: really liked the doc for that. I liked I liked
Speaker 1: um needing shar shar mayor the like Queen scares incredible.
Speaker 1: I mean I love that, like, I love that was. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love the I love the coda. We won't we
Speaker 1: won't spoil listeners about shar So shar Is she has
Speaker 1: been a scarer or like what is it, what's the
Speaker 1: actual word? Scare actors, scare actor since the seventies. I
Speaker 1: think she's um and she has worked in like all
Speaker 1: of the you know, she's done Scary Farm, she's done Blackout,
Speaker 1: She's done like a universal um what do they call it?
Speaker 1: Halloween hornets. Yeah. I should pause you though, because I
Speaker 1: had no idea what blackout was. So for anyone who
Speaker 1: doesn't know what blackout is, it is a haunted house
Speaker 1: experience that involves nudity and touchings of of uh haunts
Speaker 1: I guess in New York, right, Yeah, they set it up.
Speaker 1: They usually have like a month or so that they're
Speaker 1: set up. Um, I'm sure I think they've done other
Speaker 1: places as well. I think that they did it at
Speaker 1: Comic Con one year. Um, it's like yeah with naked naked. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's part of the general wave of new haunted
Speaker 1: experiences or haunted attractions that have safe words, um, which
Speaker 1: is another big part of this documentary. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm really close to experimental theater right right, right right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like Sleep No More is is like the big one
Speaker 1: in New York that isn't It's not as like, um,
Speaker 1: exploitative necessarily or is like um specifically gory or like
Speaker 1: over the top or doesn't have torture scenes or anything
Speaker 1: like that. But it's more of like a like a
Speaker 1: thing you walk through and you're involved in. You definitely
Speaker 1: have like contact with the actors and everything. Um. But
Speaker 1: so yeah, so Shar Shar has done everything and she's
Speaker 1: also gotten like crazy injured over the course of her career.
Speaker 1: That's how you find out is people punch scare actors
Speaker 1: in which makes sense. But it's like she's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: one time I was posted around this corner. I was
Speaker 1: just like everybody who came around the corner. As soon
Speaker 1: as I popped out, they all like punched me in
Speaker 1: the face. And she like had she has like a
Speaker 1: back injury. She's basically like unable to keep like being
Speaker 1: a scare actor, which was very sad and you can
Speaker 1: like know, but then she retires into being like an
Speaker 1: actor and jumping out scare actor. She's still an actor
Speaker 1: in haunted houses, but she's like, now I play the
Speaker 1: teacher in the haunted schoolroom instead of like the student
Speaker 1: with the chainsaws, so much happier because I don't get
Speaker 1: punched in the face as much anymore. The scare widows,
Speaker 1: all the scare windows. She okay. So shar is like
Speaker 1: she's like a Jane Lynch character, is what I thought
Speaker 1: about her. She's just like a kookie broad who just
Speaker 1: loves to scare. Like it really comes across that all
Speaker 1: these people's relationships are very strained by the fact that
Speaker 1: they're so obsessed, which is also what makes it a
Speaker 1: good documentary because I just like documentaries about people obsessed
Speaker 1: with things, and they're all just obsessed with like being
Speaker 1: part of haunted houses, and it totally alienates their partners
Speaker 1: from the room. Also because a lot of them spend
Speaker 1: so much money on these things and as much time.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's you even if it runs for the
Speaker 1: whole month of October, where they're spending like six months
Speaker 1: of the year. I kept comparing it to Burning Man,
Speaker 1: because like Burning Man, Natos and Widowers are a real
Speaker 1: thing to write write in person is really into Burning Man,
Speaker 1: and they spend all their money and time and energy
Speaker 1: thinking about Burning Man. So I think that the filmmaker
Speaker 1: John Schnitzer, who directed this documentary, um, he does. I
Speaker 1: I think I appreciate his like even to the like
Speaker 1: with the subject, so that he isn't going in depth
Speaker 1: with like he asks everybody what they do for a
Speaker 1: day job, like maybe that he doesn't ask anything else
Speaker 1: about their life or their family or anything. But so
Speaker 1: you get to like get this picture of just all
Speaker 1: these people who you know, I'm a I'm a executive
Speaker 1: assistant or whatever, and like this is my vacation every year,
Speaker 1: Like I go to southern California so that I can
Speaker 1: be a zombie universal or whatever. Like this is how
Speaker 1: I choose to spend my time off. Which is so
Speaker 1: it's it's very um, it's very interesting. It's very revealing,
Speaker 1: I think. And so there's like one half of the
Speaker 1: documentary that's like the American movie half that's like the
Speaker 1: people that are like really into scaring, but they're sort
Speaker 1: of like wholesome ultimately, uh, and they just like love
Speaker 1: they love craft. They're they're like they're actors. They love
Speaker 1: like the theater and you know. And when I went
Speaker 1: to Not Scary Farm, where I'd never been before, but
Speaker 1: I went and loved um. And I totally liked the
Speaker 1: part where you like walk through the old West town
Speaker 1: and people come out and scare you and they were things,
Speaker 1: which is terrify. They tell that some of them had
Speaker 1: worked so hard on their characters, Like there was one
Speaker 1: guy who was like the old timey like railway station man,
Speaker 1: and he was just wandering around in a bar with
Speaker 1: like all this weird stage makeup on, like ghost railwayman,
Speaker 1: just like holding a lantern. And I was like, that
Speaker 1: guy is committed to this bit, and I respect that.
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Speaker 1: call speaking of people committed to bits u um. Then
Speaker 1: there's the other part of the documentary, which is about
Speaker 1: a guy in San Diego named russ Um, a scary
Speaker 1: man who looks like a scary Southern California like Hawaiian
Speaker 1: shirt barbecue dad. Guy kind of got a little bit
Speaker 1: of abuse, look, Or who's the actor who's in the
Speaker 1: Americans who's like their neighbor in the first season. I
Speaker 1: don't know. Definitely abu see is a good um he yeah.
Speaker 1: This this part, I well, the only the only misgivings
Speaker 1: I have about this documentary or it's use of the
Speaker 1: footage of the people who go through the McCamy manner,
Speaker 1: which is like obviously a huge part of the McCamy manner,
Speaker 1: which is the super extreme like way beyond blackout, which
Speaker 1: is typically build I guess among people who don't do
Speaker 1: this all the time, it's like being the most extreme
Speaker 1: haunted house. But there they have a safe word um
Speaker 1: that's like a part of it is that you can
Speaker 1: opt out at any point if you want, and you
Speaker 1: cannot opt out of the McCamy manner. And he makes
Speaker 1: he he makes videos of the people that go through,
Speaker 1: which I guess this is a huge wait list, but
Speaker 1: he films them while they are like crying, covered in
Speaker 1: their own snot and vomit like like you know, people
Speaker 1: who are like literally being waterboarded in Haunted House signed
Speaker 1: up for So here's the deal. So Russ mccami super
Speaker 1: was super interesting to me. First of all, He's a
Speaker 1: wedding singer stage job and I'm obsessed with that. It's
Speaker 1: like frightening, like daytime horror, like the black Hole Sun.
Speaker 1: What do you know? I mean, he reminds me so
Speaker 1: much of these people I know he is. So I
Speaker 1: looked him up and he spent twenty three years in
Speaker 1: the Navy, and he doesn't smoke, he doesn't drink, he
Speaker 1: doesn't drink coffee. I think he should drink where well
Speaker 1: I'm like, wait, is how is it like person in
Speaker 1: the world was like a dry drunk too. It just
Speaker 1: makes you want to torture people. I guess I just
Speaker 1: think it's interesting, but I think that it's interesting how
Speaker 1: he kind of uses his detractors as publicity because even
Speaker 1: in the documentary, when people were so traumatized by the experience,
Speaker 1: like they go back, what's okay? So what the name
Speaker 1: not all the not the neighbor, but the neighbor did
Speaker 1: not go back volunteerly, she got tricked into coming back.
Speaker 1: It's really fun three times. What I think is the
Speaker 1: c of this documentary that makes it so crazy is
Speaker 1: that at a certain point they like interview everybody who's
Speaker 1: gone through the crazy torture water boarding. So it starts
Speaker 1: out with like he feeds you bugs, and then he
Speaker 1: like ties you up and tortures you, and then he's
Speaker 1: like water boarding you and like hard buried alive. It's
Speaker 1: a little hard to tell what actually happens because like
Speaker 1: every time they show the footage, it's so chopped up
Speaker 1: and has all the stuff step music over that it's
Speaker 1: really hard to like tell what's actually happening. But people
Speaker 1: like they talk about what they do in it. They
Speaker 1: talk about what they do in McCamy manner the whole documentary.
Speaker 1: He's like, it's this crazy, extreme haunted house and they
Speaker 1: talk about it, and they lead up to it and
Speaker 1: then they show it and there's like fifteen minutes of
Speaker 1: them showing which is what happens inside. And I was
Speaker 1: watching this at work. I was like, very worried about
Speaker 1: people seeing what I was, like what I had on
Speaker 1: my computer because it looks like a snuff film, like
Speaker 1: a film. Well, that's what I'm saying too, is like,
Speaker 1: ultimately this guy is shooting a snuff film. It's just
Speaker 1: a really long snuff film. But eventually he's going to
Speaker 1: kill some but right, yes, well, the other the most
Speaker 1: problematic thing I think about it, besides the lack of
Speaker 1: safe word, which I think exists at every other haunted
Speaker 1: everything another haunted house does. That's why mccainey manner is
Speaker 1: kind of notorious because they leave it up to the
Speaker 1: scare actors to gauge when a person has had enough,
Speaker 1: which let out the watching people beg for their lives.
Speaker 1: And you see that. That is when he gets a
Speaker 1: boner too, And that's what's so girl, literally see the boner.
Speaker 1: But you can set his eyes light up and it's
Speaker 1: like he spends all the TA It's like he like
Speaker 1: all his free terms, he doesn't spend filming people in
Speaker 1: the manner, he's like editing the footage because he considers
Speaker 1: himself a filmmaker, which is also kind of weird. The
Speaker 1: wife makes a movie. His wife is just sort of
Speaker 1: like it's a thing she has seen so much ship
Speaker 1: Like she looks like when the most haunted people in
Speaker 1: this entire she was actually she may have actually just been.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that they were married, but I read
Speaker 1: online this may not be true that they split up,
Speaker 1: which is interesting because she was the most supportive spouse.
Speaker 1: I mean, she was kind of raining him in at
Speaker 1: certain points, but she seemed like she was supportive in words,
Speaker 1: but like her eyes were dark with But there's another
Speaker 1: twist in this documentary that you don't see coming, but
Speaker 1: you're thinking. Okay, So first of all, when the people
Speaker 1: get out of the thing and then they interview them
Speaker 1: and they're like, how do you feel about it, They're
Speaker 1: all like, I want to go back and charge them. Molly,
Speaker 1: you're misrepresenting, like the there's like a few people that
Speaker 1: that do. Like it's like, how about Mario and Luigi.
Speaker 1: That's the scariest part. The two guys, the two brothers
Speaker 1: who go through it wearing Mario and Luigi and the
Speaker 1: like we want to go funk people up after this,
Speaker 1: but like, that's not everybody, Like the people that he
Speaker 1: sits down with and they watched the footage at the computer,
Speaker 1: those people are not having it. They were not happy
Speaker 1: with their experience and they say that they hate Also,
Speaker 1: they sign waivers, but they only sign waivers after they
Speaker 1: have been initiated into the experience by being basically, you know,
Speaker 1: giving permission to be kidnapped verbal permission, and then they're
Speaker 1: like tortured a little and then they're handed a form.
Speaker 1: And some people, because there are a lot of on
Speaker 1: Facebook in particular, a lot of forums dedicated to how
Speaker 1: much McCamy manner is terrible and it's like a liability
Speaker 1: and shouldn't exist and uh, and they all say that
Speaker 1: the biggest issue is that you sign the waiver under duress.
Speaker 1: And at that point you feel like these people are
Speaker 1: so sick and like you've kind of given yourself over
Speaker 1: to them that you have to do whatever they say.
Speaker 1: So that, I mean, that's really well. That's also what
Speaker 1: makes it interesting that he was in the Navy for
Speaker 1: so long. And then also the other twist is that
Speaker 1: you find out that his dad was part of the
Speaker 1: Nevada tite project. That's the real tie back. And his
Speaker 1: dad got melted by an atomic bomb, and they're like,
Speaker 1: he didn't die because of the atomic bomb. He died
Speaker 1: he killed himself because miserable. And then you're like, this guy,
Speaker 1: I signed a waiver for the government, being like, I
Speaker 1: trust you not to melt my insides. Uh, And it
Speaker 1: like kind of explains the psychological motivation of the McCamy manner.
Speaker 1: Guy explains but does not excuse. But I would, you know,
Speaker 1: I feel like it would be even scarier if it
Speaker 1: wasn't motivated by anything, you know, the fact that there's
Speaker 1: like a backstory and like a psychological thing that you're like, well,
Speaker 1: obviously this guy is obsessed with like control and death
Speaker 1: because like his country killed his dad, and then he
Speaker 1: served and then he served his country. Well I did.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that the Shar puts it really best,
Speaker 1: like the best at one point, because obviously all these people,
Speaker 1: it's like a kind of small community, so everybody knows
Speaker 1: of each other, and everybody knows of McCamy manner, and
Speaker 1: so Shar, this woman who's been in it forever and
Speaker 1: seeing like all these different stages of the evolution of
Speaker 1: this stuff. She's like, she's like, I love being a
Speaker 1: scare actor, but the whole fun of it is that
Speaker 1: somebody is there voluntarily. Like it's like a cat in
Speaker 1: a house, and like once the mouse is dead, it's
Speaker 1: not fun anymore. So like why wouldn't you want to
Speaker 1: give people away to leave? Like otherwise you're you're not
Speaker 1: playing anymore, and it's not fun. And I feel like,
Speaker 1: you know, even with the most extreme stuff, even with
Speaker 1: the full contact hunt of houses, that's still a part
Speaker 1: of it. And like there's everybody has a different threshold
Speaker 1: of what they can deal with. It's like, you know,
Speaker 1: like if you it's it's very there's so much crossover,
Speaker 1: especially with safe words and stuff with like um with
Speaker 1: like b D S M stuff and and like you know,
Speaker 1: getting dominatrix or something like that. But there's not gonna
Speaker 1: be a dominatrix who like you hire who like literally
Speaker 1: doesn't let you out of a cage for two weeks
Speaker 1: unless you specifically say I don't want to be let
Speaker 1: out of a cage for two weeks, you know, and
Speaker 1: there are people who want that. And again, yeah, and
Speaker 1: if you do, that's fine. Yeah, But and that's what's
Speaker 1: interesting about this also is you're like, it just shows you.
Speaker 1: You're like, there should never be anything where you can't
Speaker 1: withdraw consent at some point if you feel the need to.
Speaker 1: Because all of these people go into this thing being
Speaker 1: like it'll be fun, which is also like I'm already
Speaker 1: lost when they do the tagline for the experiences, you
Speaker 1: don't want to do this. But that's of he got
Speaker 1: kicked out of San Diego. He got like run out
Speaker 1: of San Diego because his neighbors complained about him waterboarding
Speaker 1: people in the backyard constantly, which they were like, slates
Speaker 1: can see you torturing people, Please don't do that. Although
Speaker 1: there is also like a black Ops military base right
Speaker 1: in San Diego right there where they do some stuff, uh,
Speaker 1: but you can't see it from your backyard. They make
Speaker 1: it really hard to see. That's why what they do
Speaker 1: with Black opsites purposely difficult to see. One thing that
Speaker 1: became like fucked up? Is it? So it started off
Speaker 1: and this is alreadie like messed up. He would just
Speaker 1: have like teenagers come and teenagers who don't know how
Speaker 1: to like properly interact with people in a way that
Speaker 1: doesn't like cross the line into assault, like he just
Speaker 1: had teens running around who were like being fed pizza
Speaker 1: and mountain dew and letting them just like like you know,
Speaker 1: run rampant on the guests. And then there was a
Speaker 1: problem because apparently one of the adult scare people was
Speaker 1: sending inappropriate text messages to one of the teen scare actors,
Speaker 1: and so then he replaced them all with like fucking
Speaker 1: like skinheads and like people would like assaulted and awful.
Speaker 1: Like what, I can't believe that any of it is
Speaker 1: legal at all, Like I hate to be the alarmist
Speaker 1: like Christian radio person right now, but it's like skirting
Speaker 1: the lines of legality because but you know what, like
Speaker 1: I I know another person who's really into haunted houses,
Speaker 1: my friend Eva, who I asked her about this documentary,
Speaker 1: and she's like knew who everybody was, but you know,
Speaker 1: people who go to home haunts. There is like a
Speaker 1: whole culture of people where it is also very like
Speaker 1: it overlaps with experimental theater. She paid a theater troupe
Speaker 1: to do an experimental play on her for a year
Speaker 1: what what like it was like two She's really into
Speaker 1: haunted experiences and so she she paid a theater troupe
Speaker 1: to like do a haunted experience on her, where I
Speaker 1: think it was like people would just show up sometimes
Speaker 1: and be like asked her questions that we're confusing and
Speaker 1: be like I'm the doctor. And then herself. I was like,
Speaker 1: what are you going for with this? Like are you
Speaker 1: trying to make yourself unhinged? Because like I have enough
Speaker 1: problems with that without hiring people to come man like,
Speaker 1: so she and well, she said like eventually it ended
Speaker 1: because they ran out of money. They never like came
Speaker 1: to the conclusion of the play. She never like found
Speaker 1: out the answer to the mystery because they're like they're
Speaker 1: like a theater troupe from San Francisco who like moved
Speaker 1: down to l A to haunt her, and then they
Speaker 1: ran out of money. I was like, are you sure?
Speaker 1: Is that just part of the play? Six months later
Speaker 1: and they're like hey Eva, And then I was like
Speaker 1: how much did it cost? And she was like five
Speaker 1: And I was like, well, that's very reasonable for like
Speaker 1: a year of haunting. I always wanted to do that thing,
Speaker 1: which I don't think they do anymore, UM called Street Wars.
Speaker 1: It's like the Assassin game that runs over like it
Speaker 1: basically as long as it takes where you have a
Speaker 1: real life target in town and like in the city
Speaker 1: that you live in, and you're supposed to just like
Speaker 1: squirt them at the water gun. But like everything is
Speaker 1: it's like the geocaching games with like it's kind of
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's like a similar appeal, but
Speaker 1: it's like it's like you actually have to find out
Speaker 1: where to find the person that you're assigned to, and
Speaker 1: you have funds like LARPing it is, Are you into
Speaker 1: cyberpunk LARPing? Yeah, totally, dude. Yeah, what I had read
Speaker 1: about it sounds it sounded super fun, but also you
Speaker 1: have to have a huge amount of trust in the
Speaker 1: people who are doing the game with you. Well. Eva
Speaker 1: said also that like somebody at a different Haunted how
Speaker 1: she went to almost got killed and I was like,
Speaker 1: well a McCamy man and she was like, no, another
Speaker 1: one like in Riverside or something. No. It was like
Speaker 1: they do them out of people's houses. They're like small
Speaker 1: skial ones that are like experimental place and so some
Speaker 1: of them are like participatory, and this one I think
Speaker 1: it was like they throw you on the bed and
Speaker 1: then there were people under the bed who like come
Speaker 1: out and grab you. But they threw somebody on the
Speaker 1: bed who was like too big, and they like almost
Speaker 1: crushed the people under the bed because the bed broke.
Speaker 1: I was like, great, it is this totally unregulated industry
Speaker 1: and it's like such a micro industry because it only
Speaker 1: happens once a year. But everybody in this documentary is
Speaker 1: like talking about the mccabi man or guy be like
Speaker 1: this guy's gonna get us all banned forever from haunted houses,
Speaker 1: which is like I understand why, Like yeah, that that
Speaker 1: thing of like the existential threat to your entire like
Speaker 1: hobby slash way of life is real. I also I
Speaker 1: looked at John Schnitzer on IMDb, and he is the
Speaker 1: co owner of the Brain Factory, so he creates horror
Speaker 1: attractions and he does um It says he directed and
Speaker 1: produced the Flatline Experience, a virtual reality project that gives
Speaker 1: audiences the ability to become active participants in an act
Speaker 1: school near death experience. It's like, yeah, so I thought that,
Speaker 1: like one of the really good things about this documentary
Speaker 1: was that mckemi manner obviously is the most you know,
Speaker 1: is the biggest example of how this is like maybe
Speaker 1: a terrible idea that shouldn't exist, but it's dealt with
Speaker 1: very diplomatically because there are people who find a tremendous
Speaker 1: release from this, Like I'm not one of them, and
Speaker 1: I would be so upset if this were next door
Speaker 1: to my house and I was like constantly hearing people
Speaker 1: by the way squeamish, like turn off your ears right now.
Speaker 1: But it was really intense to see him force people
Speaker 1: to eat their Yeah, that was awful. I mean that
Speaker 1: was like, for some reason, that was more than anything
Speaker 1: else was where I was just like, I don't know, Russ,
Speaker 1: I think it kind of like I couldn't that it
Speaker 1: was on Netflix. I have to say, like there's so
Speaker 1: much nasty stuff on this that I was like, Wow,
Speaker 1: the things I'm like, if somebody wants to do that,
Speaker 1: I'm not judging because hurt anybody, but like the water
Speaker 1: boarding where I'm like, you could literally just murder somebody
Speaker 1: by accident. I don't believe what you're doing. This know
Speaker 1: what they're actually doing for sure. They make that very clear.
Speaker 1: They're like, we we got rid of the teenagers who
Speaker 1: didn't know what they were doing and hired a bunch
Speaker 1: of racist skinheads. He's like, not reassuring all and now
Speaker 1: he does it in the South traveling show. Well, I
Speaker 1: was also like, this is right up. He's going to
Speaker 1: turn into that guy from the last episode of Black Mirror,
Speaker 1: the Black Museum guy. You know. I was like that,
Speaker 1: that's exactly his vibe, but exactly it's bad. You're like,
Speaker 1: this guy wants to like torture people for like racism,
Speaker 1: which she probably already did in the Well you wonder
Speaker 1: it's hard to tell because he doesn't swear. So when
Speaker 1: he was like, yeah, this one guy was into the
Speaker 1: KKK and some of that junk, I was like, well,
Speaker 1: it's bettered up to me, So it was cool, Like
Speaker 1: he came clean, he came clean. Um, do you guys,
Speaker 1: what would be Do you guys have any like deep
Speaker 1: seated horrible fears and if you were going to have
Speaker 1: your own horrible experience in one of these night marriage houses,
Speaker 1: would there be like certain elements that you would go for,
Speaker 1: Like none of the stuff where it's all like people
Speaker 1: gagging you and pushing you around and like simulating rape
Speaker 1: on you or whatever. None of that sounds like that
Speaker 1: sounds scary, yes, but it doesn't sound like something I
Speaker 1: would ever volunteer for. But I did do this, Like
Speaker 1: what part of the Grantland story that I did where
Speaker 1: I went to all the haunts was like this thing
Speaker 1: called alone, which they showed the logo of it at
Speaker 1: one point during the documentary. I think they still do
Speaker 1: it in l A and that one is much more like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you get you get pushed around and like touched by people,
Speaker 1: but it's not like Gore. It's not like it's not
Speaker 1: this torture porn aesthetic. It's like just like unsettling weird
Speaker 1: environments like kind of way. But why is it called
Speaker 1: alone if there are people there to touch you? Because
Speaker 1: you have to go through it by yourself, Like I
Speaker 1: think a lot of these, even blackout and stuff, you
Speaker 1: can go through with your friends or they'll like separate
Speaker 1: you a point, but then you come back together like
Speaker 1: but but alone you have to go through all by yourself, Um,
Speaker 1: which is kind of great. I loved it. I thought
Speaker 1: it was I thought it was it was scary, like
Speaker 1: it was the scariest thing of everything that I did,
Speaker 1: But it was like scary in an interesting way and
Speaker 1: not like where I was like that that was different
Speaker 1: than anything that I've experienced before. Like the way that
Speaker 1: these people are like chasing after the like I just
Speaker 1: want to see if I can do it. Like that
Speaker 1: felt more satisfying to me in that way without having
Speaker 1: my haircut or whatever else they do to you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I feel like, just like torture porn, I
Speaker 1: find kind of boring as a horror genre because it's
Speaker 1: sort of just you know, it hits you over the head,
Speaker 1: over and over, agad and enough enough. I like, I
Speaker 1: do think there's like a lot more space in the
Speaker 1: haunting space. Well, you guys are invited to my haunting space,
Speaker 1: which is going to be in an office building, and
Speaker 1: you get into an elevator and then it stops, and
Speaker 1: then you don't know when I'll let you off. Because that,
Speaker 1: to me is the most I'm like put me by
Speaker 1: my self in a way I prefer that I'm not
Speaker 1: finding Like I don't think I would have any kind
Speaker 1: of like a breakthrough and epiphany being touched by other people,
Speaker 1: because that's kind of something I avoid. But like being
Speaker 1: in an elevator by yourself and then having someone else
Speaker 1: like make the decision when to let you out, I
Speaker 1: think I could crack out. Yeah, Well, I was afraid
Speaker 1: of elevators to really like me. I got stuck in
Speaker 1: one and was like, this is a justified fear. I'll
Speaker 1: take the stairs. I've never been stuck in one, but
Speaker 1: I saw so many sitcom episodes where people got stuck
Speaker 1: in them, and then the movie Speed. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: lots of scary things can go wrong every day, but
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, I like a Disneyland haunted mansion.
Speaker 1: I like a spooky vibe um. And also the James
Speaker 1: Turrell thing that Emily and I saw in Las Vegas.
Speaker 1: I feel like, is that another yea, yeah, it's in
Speaker 1: a plane of like you feel, you feel kind of
Speaker 1: like out of your body in a way that is
Speaker 1: great and crazy, and you're sort of like I could
Speaker 1: just go off into the forever. Wait, which one was this?
Speaker 1: Because I did the one where you're in a tube
Speaker 1: and there's the lights. Not that one. I loved that.
Speaker 1: The one that's like the gans Field one where you
Speaker 1: like the hotline blend bling one. Yeah. Speaking of things
Speaker 1: that will make you feel weird, have you guys heard
Speaker 1: of this podcast The Last Movie Um. It's from the
Speaker 1: creator of Tannis Rabbits and the co creator of The
Speaker 1: Black Tapes. Tannis podcast host Nick Silver and regular contributor
Speaker 1: m K explore the possible existence of The Last Movie,
Speaker 1: an infamous underground feature film rempewted to drive you insane.
Speaker 1: Legend has it that every screening of this film was
Speaker 1: surrounded by bloodshed and controversy. One reviewer actually described slipping
Speaker 1: on blood in the aisle as you ran through dozens
Speaker 1: of people trying to tear him apart. Holy sh it, Uh,
Speaker 1: it's going to be insane. So subscribe to The Last
Speaker 1: Movie on Apple, podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts, and get ready to enjoy the mystery. Let's
Speaker 1: take a nightcall or night email as the case. Maybe
Speaker 1: this person does not want their name read, but this
Speaker 1: letter is very good, so um we want to share
Speaker 1: it with you. Hello, Nightcall. After listening to the discussion
Speaker 1: in astrology, psychics, etcetera on the most recent episode of Nightcall,
Speaker 1: I wanted to reach out and get your take on
Speaker 1: a past situation I dealt with at a past job.
Speaker 1: My boss, who fancied herself as my mentor, was into
Speaker 1: all of this. She had quarterly calls with the psychic
Speaker 1: who lived across the country, where she'd ask specific questions
Speaker 1: about everyone in her life, including me. She was always
Speaker 1: happy to tell me when he had good news about me,
Speaker 1: most often related to my love life. But I do
Speaker 1: have a suspicion that my eventual fall out of favor
Speaker 1: with her had something to do with one of these readings.
Speaker 1: What advice would you have for past me? How does
Speaker 1: one tell their boss to knock it off and quit
Speaker 1: asking their psychic about me, or at the very least
Speaker 1: not tell me about it. Also, on the off chance
Speaker 1: that she listens to anyone other than her psychic, namely
Speaker 1: this podcast, please don't use my name, thank you in advance. Um, well, this,
Speaker 1: I mean, I would be terrified if my my boss
Speaker 1: was consulting a psychic about me. I would feel like
Speaker 1: my fate was even more out of my hands than
Speaker 1: it normally was. So I'm not sure what a boring
Speaker 1: person to be like asking your psychic about your employee. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, do you have nothing else? That's a very
Speaker 1: it's kind of passive aggressive to It's like my psychic said,
Speaker 1: I don't like you. I'm gonna actually I'm gonna say
Speaker 1: that this woman or a man's ass was totally lying
Speaker 1: to her, and I think she was I think she
Speaker 1: was messing with her. I'm just closing the question, do
Speaker 1: you think I mean if if? Okay, So she finds
Speaker 1: out about her boss seeing a psychic, uh by her
Speaker 1: boss just saying like, oh I my psychic told me
Speaker 1: a few interesting things about you. Wink wink um. I
Speaker 1: think at that point I would like lightheartedly be like, okay, cool,
Speaker 1: please don't talk to me about your psychics, like to
Speaker 1: me with your psychic anymore. You know, like it's so
Speaker 1: weird because it's your boss, so like you can't be
Speaker 1: like I don't want to hear it, and you're like,
Speaker 1: oh God to hear whatever they want to talk about,
Speaker 1: even if it's some weird thing about me. But obviously
Speaker 1: as soon as they're like I asked my psychic, it's
Speaker 1: like someone being like, oh, I was talking to my
Speaker 1: therapist about you. Yeah, but that's definitely a therapist at
Speaker 1: least will like ideally give you some kind of like
Speaker 1: uh you know of studied. H No. No, if you
Speaker 1: talk to your therapist about someone and then you report
Speaker 1: to that person what your therapist said, that is a
Speaker 1: truly terrible thing. You know, definitely don't do that. But
Speaker 1: I'm saying that if somebody did that, I would feel
Speaker 1: less alarmed or like out of control than if somebody
Speaker 1: said that they were asking my who knows what this like?
Speaker 1: At least they're going to their therapist with like an account,
Speaker 1: accurate or otherwise of something that I did or some
Speaker 1: way that I was. But when the psychic is just
Speaker 1: like could be, it's drawn out of a hat who knows,
Speaker 1: it still seems inappropriate. You shouldn't be talking to your
Speaker 1: therapist about your employees, and if you do, you shouldn't
Speaker 1: tell your employees it. I'm just saying that it's it's
Speaker 1: like a ship, not quite as bad. But I gotta
Speaker 1: say they always do an amazing job with that on
Speaker 1: the real house, so I have franchise. They always bring
Speaker 1: in a psychic to like uncover things people don't want
Speaker 1: to say, but do what we all recall on Beverly Hills,
Speaker 1: the pen or whatever that was iconic iconic. Guys, you
Speaker 1: want to take another night call? Well wait, we haven't
Speaker 1: even finished talking about this. What's your advice? My advice
Speaker 1: is she's lucky she got out of that job. They say,
Speaker 1: especially the only person is your mentor. I would say, like,
Speaker 1: find another mentor if not another boss, or start looking
Speaker 1: for another job, but definitely find another mentor person if
Speaker 1: if seniority to assist you with your career. This person
Speaker 1: doesn't have your I think what you should do is
Speaker 1: I think that you, if you're ever in this position again,
Speaker 1: you need to tell your boss that you too have
Speaker 1: a psychic and you too are consulting with your psychic,
Speaker 1: and just non and be like interesting and then just
Speaker 1: be like, that's the opposite of what my psychic said,
Speaker 1: and stare directly in her eyes, stared directly into her soul,
Speaker 1: and just like really let her know that you see
Speaker 1: her her poisoned aura. That's what you say is you're like, well,
Speaker 1: my like Satanist preacher. Oh there's that too, said that
Speaker 1: if you keep giving false prophecies about you're gonna die,
Speaker 1: I will not get you fired at all. That well,
Speaker 1: and then bring together. Okay, it's freedom of religion act. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: all right, let's take another night call while we're at
Speaker 1: a friend A nightcall, A night call from Sarah. Sarah says,
Speaker 1: high night call. You asked for some Ghod stories at
Speaker 1: the end of the episode with Claire Evans, and I
Speaker 1: thought i'd email mine. My friend once told me that
Speaker 1: growing up, she used to play with a friend of
Speaker 1: hers in the alley behind their two houses. At the
Speaker 1: end of the alley was a house everyone knew to
Speaker 1: be abandoned. One day, they thought they saw a figure
Speaker 1: in the window. The kids told an adult, and this
Speaker 1: is where it got strange. For some reason, the adults
Speaker 1: suggested they go into the house and see who was there.
Speaker 1: Once they got in the house, they saw no one
Speaker 1: in the rooms, but saw a staircase leading to upstairs.
Speaker 1: My friend said the staircase was too small for an
Speaker 1: adult to walk up, so the adult had the children
Speaker 1: go instead. The children obliged and found nothing up the stairs.
Speaker 1: As they were leaving, they saw a staircase to the basement.
Speaker 1: She says. Her next memory is of the following day,
Speaker 1: when neither her, her friend, or the adult chaperone could
Speaker 1: remember anything that happened. After they saw the basement steps,
Speaker 1: they went back to the house to see if they
Speaker 1: could piece the events together, but found the entire house
Speaker 1: but had been raised. She has no memory of any
Speaker 1: fire demolition and doesn't know exactly what happened. Uh did
Speaker 1: they hallucinate it? Was it the adult or was it
Speaker 1: the work of ghosts? I am sure the three of
Speaker 1: you can get this figured out. I like your confidence
Speaker 1: definitely as people who are like what tertiary? Uh, listeners
Speaker 1: of this amateur ghosts investigators? We was ghosts? Sarah ghost
Speaker 1: raise the house? I mean, who was this adult go
Speaker 1: up the stairs? Well? I think that's one of the questions.
Speaker 1: Is is this like a repressed memory thing like an
Speaker 1: eighties yeah kind of kind of thing, or is it
Speaker 1: like a weird vivid dream that you have that you
Speaker 1: then remember as like a childhood memory, which I feel
Speaker 1: like also happens because I had a weird thing that
Speaker 1: I think was a dream where I like visualized that
Speaker 1: the swimming pool was full of worms time. And then
Speaker 1: I asked my parents about it and they were like,
Speaker 1: that didn't happen really? Yeah? How old are you? Like
Speaker 1: a kid? Crazy? Yeah? And it was like very vivid.
Speaker 1: It's one of the things I think about. Have you guys,
Speaker 1: have any had any really convincing ghost experiences? Uh? I
Speaker 1: had an experience like two days ago. Whoa UM. I
Speaker 1: was like alone on a rooftop and I heard a
Speaker 1: rustling sound and I was like, it's a person. It
Speaker 1: sounds big, it's a person or like an animal in
Speaker 1: this like rooftop vegetable garden. And then it was a
Speaker 1: balloon and it was like a children's happy Birthday balloon,
Speaker 1: and it just like floated along past me and then
Speaker 1: like floated away, and I was like, that was as
Speaker 1: scary as if it had been a person. Um. My
Speaker 1: my bedroom at my parents house, where I only spent
Speaker 1: a couple of years because we moved around, but they've
Speaker 1: had this house for a while and they now live
Speaker 1: in it. Um. I had terrible insomnia starting when we
Speaker 1: moved in there, and my parents are sleeping fine. We
Speaker 1: come from New York City and they had been sleeping
Speaker 1: on the street side, so they could never sleep in
Speaker 1: New York. And then they go up to the country
Speaker 1: and be like, oh, it's so it's like so peaceful
Speaker 1: at night. But as soon as we moved there, I
Speaker 1: could never never sleep. And it also was, you know,
Speaker 1: no matter how they tinkered with the temperature, my room
Speaker 1: was always freezing cold. And when I was younger, I
Speaker 1: was like, I don't know, guys, everything's kind of pointing
Speaker 1: in a ghostly direction for my room. And they were like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's bullshit, Like no you just wish that you lived
Speaker 1: back in New York where you had friends and you
Speaker 1: have no friends here. And I was like, that's a
Speaker 1: good point. But it's also a haunted house. So a
Speaker 1: few years ago, my parents bedroom was being painted and
Speaker 1: they moved their stuff into my room for like a
Speaker 1: week or something, um and neither of them could sleep.
Speaker 1: And they were like it was crazy because our rooms
Speaker 1: are like really close together in the house, and their
Speaker 1: room would be a normal temperature, but mine was like freezing,
Speaker 1: freezing cold. And whenever I go back to visit and
Speaker 1: bring people with me or whatever, nobody can sleep in
Speaker 1: that room. Like you just stay up all night, kind
Speaker 1: of like staring at the sea and being creeped out.
Speaker 1: Can I ask a question, do you have one of
Speaker 1: those weird compartments in the wall that like weird East
Speaker 1: Coast houses have. Do you know what I'm talking about,
Speaker 1: the vacuum closet. Not in that that room though, it's
Speaker 1: like it's there's like a tree with a branch that
Speaker 1: always like scratches against the window. It has like a
Speaker 1: bunch of like the New England kind of like creepy.
Speaker 1: I mean, all of New England is definitely haunted, and
Speaker 1: definitely that house might be haunted. It feels mad haunted forest. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, there's just something it's like it
Speaker 1: looks like if you I mean, it's beautiful house, and
Speaker 1: I think it's just my room that's haunted. It's probably
Speaker 1: just haunted. And read a lot of Stephen King around that.
Speaker 1: That's the thing is that I got really into Stephen King.
Speaker 1: Would just stay up on my reading Stephen King and
Speaker 1: go to school and like the goths and not happy. Emily,
Speaker 1: do you have any ghost stories? Well, I don't really,
Speaker 1: and I was kind of getting at this earlier. I
Speaker 1: am a little bit jealous of people that do, Like
Speaker 1: I would like to have my um my idea of
Speaker 1: what what constitutes reality be challenged in a way where
Speaker 1: I saw a ghost or really anything like a ghost
Speaker 1: is one. Yeah, i'd I'd be open to it and
Speaker 1: curious about it. But I've never had anything like that happened.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, I didn't really watch a lot
Speaker 1: of scary movies when I was a kid, or read
Speaker 1: Stephen King or anything like that, so I just don't
Speaker 1: think that that stuff was in my imagination. So I
Speaker 1: wasn't able to even like trick myself into thinking that
Speaker 1: I saw anything. But I've heard so many like convincing
Speaker 1: ghost stories from people, like a ghost experiences that uh
Speaker 1: that make me you know, I'd be interested in I'd
Speaker 1: be interested in their their reality or like what was
Speaker 1: behind them. Like I had a roommate who um was
Speaker 1: staying at a friend's parents summer home of course on
Speaker 1: the East Coast, that's where all these happened, and there
Speaker 1: was um there was like a little boy who she
Speaker 1: would say every night like at the top of the
Speaker 1: stairs were like a little sailor outfit, and multiple people
Speaker 1: have said that they had seen him. Like that kind
Speaker 1: of thing creeps me out. So I went to a
Speaker 1: hotel in Santa Fe specifically because I had seen it
Speaker 1: on a haunted celebrity show Celebrity Ghost Stories, where Joe
Speaker 1: Pantoliano said he had been haunted there. Yeah, well he
Speaker 1: was also like me and my lady friend were like
Speaker 1: fighting a lot. But it definitely had like some some
Speaker 1: old timey vibes, but I didn't feel haunted specifically. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's this whole like subset of hauntings that happens where
Speaker 1: people on when they're watching their baby monitors of their kids.
Speaker 1: They see floating glowing orders. So if there's about like
Speaker 1: aphex twin faces and your baby monitor, like there are
Speaker 1: things like off that you know related to that. But
Speaker 1: um also there's a lot of discussion of and this
Speaker 1: is something that you can look at them like baby
Speaker 1: Center and like weird like you know, giant parenting groups
Speaker 1: where people talk about how their young children will refer
Speaker 1: to like you know, like my kids have actually have
Speaker 1: one called baby Sam. Baby Sam wasn't died in England,
Speaker 1: but now like haunts them. But you know, it's like
Speaker 1: a comment thing where your kid will have an imaginary friend.
Speaker 1: But then sometimes they tie it in with like yes,
Speaker 1: my imaginary friend he's dead, and you're like, tuft, you
Speaker 1: were always really into Rosemary's Baby. Were you afraid you
Speaker 1: might have like a demon child? No, because the timing
Speaker 1: was off with my affair with Satan. I looked at
Speaker 1: my calculator as like the period No, that's the title
Speaker 1: of this episode, my Satan. I mean I think that
Speaker 1: I think that there's been some research into the fact
Speaker 1: that like most children like hallucinate a good deal, like
Speaker 1: as their brains are developing, like that, there's totally like
Speaker 1: that's where the idea of imaginary friends come from, and
Speaker 1: or other things where you're just your memory can be
Speaker 1: a little bit warped about your early early childhood, just
Speaker 1: because like so much of it is of a little
Speaker 1: bit uh yeah, not all solid necessary, like the scary
Speaker 1: neighborhood house everybody has, like the scary house at the
Speaker 1: end of the street. Uh, that represents your subconscious and
Speaker 1: burns down. But you know, I think a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff about like kid geography, and that is what's so
Speaker 1: good about it and those good Stephen King books is
Speaker 1: that they are like about like you're a kid and
Speaker 1: everything's weird, and also you're afraid of your changing body
Speaker 1: and maybe it's a clown. What's the most like, um,
Speaker 1: I guess notoriously haunted place you guys have ever visited?
Speaker 1: Oh well, that's easily I can answer that. Devil's Gate
Speaker 1: in Pasadena. I was going to say that one too.
Speaker 1: It's yeah, yeah, which is definitely haunted. And but again
Speaker 1: I'm like sometimes I'm like, oh, I like the like
Speaker 1: the lay lines thing, you know. I like I like
Speaker 1: going to nature and having that thing where you're like
Speaker 1: overtaken by nature and you're like, I'm a I'm a
Speaker 1: tiny little dot. That that's the best feeling, twiny little
Speaker 1: dots surrounded by ghosts. And I do feel like you
Speaker 1: know that there's that spirited away thing where you do
Speaker 1: sometimes in nature just feel like everything spirit ye is
Speaker 1: reel annihilation Yeah, annihilation um ego. By the way, like
Speaker 1: we we were so happy to get the ghost stories
Speaker 1: that we got. So if you have a ghost story,
Speaker 1: please give us a call at two four oh four
Speaker 1: six night or you can email us at Night Call
Speaker 1: Podcast at gmail. And it's not limited to ghost stories,
Speaker 1: but we want more ghost stories. Yeah, give us, feed
Speaker 1: us ghost stories, feed us ghosts. Um. I think that
Speaker 1: does it for us this week. Thank you for listening
Speaker 1: to our podcast. You can subscribe to us on iTunes,
Speaker 1: leave us a review, and leave us a five star rating,
Speaker 1: but only if you feel it in your heart. You
Speaker 1: can also follow us on Twitter a Nightcall Pod, and Facebook,
Speaker 1: Nightcall Podcast and Instagram at Night Called Podcast and those
Speaker 1: are all of our social media platforms. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: We'll see you next week with Ghosts M.