Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: Listener mail. My name is Robert lamp and I'm Joe McCormick,
Speaker 1: and it's October and we are bringing back some of
Speaker 1: the messages you've sent in over the past week or so.
Speaker 1: Rob do you want to kick it off with this
Speaker 1: message about the Holy Undead? All right? This one comes
Speaker 1: to us from Dorian. Hey, guys, first of all, completely
Speaker 1: love your show. However, I couldn't believe that you failed
Speaker 1: to mention the new Netflix series in your last podcast.
Speaker 1: Um Midnight mass So Dorris referend to the fact that
Speaker 1: we discussed the the old story the Midnight mass of
Speaker 1: the Dead, and here that this is something called Midnight
Speaker 1: mass Um. I believe it's from what's his name, the
Speaker 1: guy did Oculus Mike Flanagan. I think it's Mike Plan again. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're an Oculus fan, aren't you. Well. And as as
Speaker 1: much as one can be of a film that I
Speaker 1: think it makes, it wants to make you feel bad.
Speaker 1: It worked as a I thought it was an effective
Speaker 1: horror film. Yeah, but I haven't I haven't really watched
Speaker 1: a lot of his his recent stuff, So I think
Speaker 1: Occous is the most recent Mike Flannagan thing I've seen.
Speaker 1: He did the movie adaptation of Doctor Sleep, UM, which
Speaker 1: I watched not too long ago, and I had very
Speaker 1: mixed feelings about There's some really good things about it,
Speaker 1: some things really don't work at all. I could probably
Speaker 1: say the same thing about the book, like I read
Speaker 1: the book Doctor Sleep, and there were things I I
Speaker 1: really lacked about it and things that I don't know
Speaker 1: didn't completely work for me. But it's it's a good
Speaker 1: story anyway. Dorian continues, I had no idea that this
Speaker 1: was an older idea, and then the show borrowed this,
Speaker 1: but the take in the show is certainly really interesting.
Speaker 1: UM T L d R. Jesus was vampire. I hope
Speaker 1: you can mention this in your next installment. Best Dorian, Um,
Speaker 1: I think I have I have to me. I think
Speaker 1: I'd seen that title pop up in Netflix, but um,
Speaker 1: I hadn't really investigated further for a few different reasons.
Speaker 1: First of all, it's I generally watched that kind of
Speaker 1: thing with my wife, and it's it's it's hard to
Speaker 1: get her on board with with a horror show. UM.
Speaker 1: And I was able to successfully get her to watch
Speaker 1: The Terror with me. Um uh, the season one of
Speaker 1: which is an adaptation with Dan Simon's novel, and thus
Speaker 1: far it's just terrific. So I knew better than to
Speaker 1: press my look and start looking at another horror series
Speaker 1: and seeing if I could get her on board with
Speaker 1: that one. Is that the one that's got Lane Price
Speaker 1: for Madman in the in the Arctic? Yes? Yeah, Jared
Speaker 1: Harris is in it. You got Tobias Menzies. Uh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's got a wonderful cast, and um yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: about Arctic exploration and uh and really you could you
Speaker 1: if you didn't know that the show had a speculative
Speaker 1: element thrown in. Uh, you'd be watching for a while
Speaker 1: before it presented itself and then you're reminded, oh, out,
Speaker 1: there's there's something else going on here as well. But
Speaker 1: so far greatly enjoying that show. I guess I'm suspicious.
Speaker 1: I was suspicious of the title though, because Midnight Mass
Speaker 1: it sounds dark. But you had that movie come out
Speaker 1: called Black Mass. It was just about gangsters. It had
Speaker 1: nothing to do with you know, satanic masses and so
Speaker 1: forth and witchcraft. Um, and that that that that kind
Speaker 1: of turned me off. I'm like, uh, I can't trust
Speaker 1: Hollywood to do anything. Oh yeah, that's one with Johnny
Speaker 1: Depp as the gangster with really blue eyes. I guess yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think so. And he's not a warlock at all
Speaker 1: in it, like why why are you wasting my time?
Speaker 1: And it was just kind of a grimy killer. But anyway, Dorian,
Speaker 1: thanks for bringing that to our attention. Yeah. I had
Speaker 1: not put one in two together that that might be
Speaker 1: related to what we were discussing in the show. But
Speaker 1: now that I know that there's at least some element
Speaker 1: of the Midnight Mass of the Dead there, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: interested to check it out. Okay, we got a few
Speaker 1: more responses to the episode Seth and I did about
Speaker 1: horror movie music. This first one comes from Sebastian, who's
Speaker 1: written in a number of times. Sebastian says hello to
Speaker 1: the lads from stuff. I'm not sure if anyone wrote
Speaker 1: into comment on this, but in the very special episode
Speaker 1: featuring Seth, in which you discussed spooky horror soundtrack music,
Speaker 1: you briefly mentioned the Devil's Cord also known as a
Speaker 1: try tone, and briefly mentioned its contentious history with the Church. Now,
Speaker 1: Sebastian respectfully that we did make reference to the try tone.
Speaker 1: I really don't think we said anything about the try
Speaker 1: tone having any particular history with the church, and even
Speaker 1: checked my notes to make sure I didn't see anything
Speaker 1: about that. So it's possible you may be mixing our
Speaker 1: episode up with something else. But I appreciate all of
Speaker 1: the thoughts you have that follow nonetheless, because I have
Speaker 1: at least gotten the impression somewhere along the way that somebody,
Speaker 1: at some point in time thought that this, uh, this
Speaker 1: series of notes was evil. But but Sebastian explains, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: this history is actually both made up and also modern,
Speaker 1: and was thoroughly debunked by dreamy YouTuber and funk bassist
Speaker 1: Adam Neely, and then he links to this YouTube channel.
Speaker 1: Turns out the cord was never banned by anyone and
Speaker 1: never considered an evil or dark sound and sniping from
Speaker 1: Adam Neely's hard word, I linked to the medieval French
Speaker 1: composer Perotons Catholic Christmas him Vita un omniss, which is
Speaker 1: both loaded with try tones and also was commissioned by
Speaker 1: the church, and it is also beautiful and Sebastian includes
Speaker 1: a link for us to listen to. But if people
Speaker 1: aren't as familiar with classical music, you can you can
Speaker 1: also pretty quickly bring the try tone to mind if
Speaker 1: you think about the song off of Black Sabbath's first album.
Speaker 1: I think the song is called Black Sabbath. It's the
Speaker 1: one that goes down, down down. I think you know
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about, right, Oh, I know what you're
Speaker 1: talking about. Yeah, and Aussie's going, oh no, please God
Speaker 1: help me. Um, but a Sebastian goes on his Storically,
Speaker 1: the tri tone was noted as being quote vivacious and
Speaker 1: forceful in ascent funereal, and sad and decent. In fact,
Speaker 1: Neely also found a modern instance of melodic sequences of
Speaker 1: the tritne chord, being the opening three notes of the
Speaker 1: Simpsons theme and the name Maria in the self named
Speaker 1: song from a West Side Story, both being very forceful
Speaker 1: and vivacious. Indeed, the chord was also known as the
Speaker 1: Devil's chord, but for a different reason. In this arrangement,
Speaker 1: the four and five of a major scale are played
Speaker 1: along with the root, and if you know your music theory,
Speaker 1: then you know that they're a half tone apart. As
Speaker 1: a result, singers will tend to try to sing a
Speaker 1: slightly flat fourth and a slightly sharp fifth to overcompensate
Speaker 1: for the similarity. The chord doesn't summon or invoke the devil,
Speaker 1: it's just devilish lye difficult to get acquired to perform it.
Speaker 1: The assumption that historical people didn't have a sense of
Speaker 1: humor or metaphor came in in the nineteen sixties when
Speaker 1: heavy metal musicians were looking for things to incorporate to
Speaker 1: make things seem more forbidden, and a chord called the
Speaker 1: Devil definitely struck a chord and then we get a
Speaker 1: winking face emoji. The rest is modern mythology. This reminds
Speaker 1: me of an episode of Look Around You about Music.
Speaker 1: I guess with the one about music, or it was
Speaker 1: the one that dealt with synthesizers. I can't remember the
Speaker 1: season one or two, but it's probably season one where
Speaker 1: they were talking about these, uh these notes diabolique I
Speaker 1: think they were called, and uh it's this uh this
Speaker 1: added little box at the end of the keyboard that's
Speaker 1: actually locked and you have to unlock it to access
Speaker 1: these like these three Maybe it was three, but it
Speaker 1: just just a very small number of keys that you
Speaker 1: could play. Look around you. That show, by the way,
Speaker 1: if you've never seen it is worth looking up. It's
Speaker 1: absolutely yeah. Even just a summary of the premise is
Speaker 1: pretty delightful. It is simply short educational films of the
Speaker 1: kind you might see in a British elementary school class room,
Speaker 1: except they are full of deeply incorrect information. Yeah and
Speaker 1: just uh yeah, just weirdness and absurdities. It's a it's
Speaker 1: a fantastic vibe, all presented for the most part very dryly.
Speaker 1: Sebastian goes on, as for music, if you really want
Speaker 1: something to appear darker or spookier more so than a
Speaker 1: minor key, you should really consider using different modes, especially
Speaker 1: the lacrean, where basically no two notes sound good together.
Speaker 1: But that's probably more music theory than your average stuff
Speaker 1: to blow your mind listener is ready for without a
Speaker 1: full episode of preamble, I mean talking about music theory
Speaker 1: without without auditory examples. In general, I find it's very difficult,
Speaker 1: and more so difficult because I don't understand a whole
Speaker 1: lot of music theory. I'm I'm only uh literate in
Speaker 1: the most basic music theory sense like. I think the
Speaker 1: extent to which I understand music is the extent to
Speaker 1: which you could say you're literate if you can only
Speaker 1: sort of read like road signs and stuff. Sebastian says
Speaker 1: in the last listener mail, you also mentioned dark Christmas music,
Speaker 1: and my favorite will always be Coventry Carol, which is
Speaker 1: about the Christmas prophecy ending with King Herod's slaying of
Speaker 1: the babes. It is a Christmas carol in a dark
Speaker 1: key about witchcraft and genocide, all framed on the background
Speaker 1: of a census which was used as a tool of oppression.
Speaker 1: How metal is that? Yeah, I'm looking at the lyrics
Speaker 1: here Harold the King and his raging charged he hath
Speaker 1: this day his men of might in his own site,
Speaker 1: all children young to slay, and not not the not
Speaker 1: the good Christmas kind of slay, not a sleigh ride,
Speaker 1: but the the killing kind. That's music to eat candy
Speaker 1: canes by Um. Sebastian goes on one thing for Weird
Speaker 1: House Cinema. This has never come up on the show
Speaker 1: We're basically Anywhere, but I noticed recently that Tom Waits
Speaker 1: and Ron Pearlman vaguely resemble each other and it's a
Speaker 1: pity that they never played brothers or cousins in anything. Sebastian,
Speaker 1: I have noticed this before. You're not the only one,
Speaker 1: but Sebastian goes on. Both of their filmographies are almost
Speaker 1: entirely good fodder for weird house cinema, so it didn't
Speaker 1: seem too off topic. I suppose I could say Tom
Speaker 1: Waits would make a hilarious dark Bomba Dil with a
Speaker 1: swap out for Pearlman playing a magically powered up warrior
Speaker 1: version of the character, assuming Bomba Dil were like a
Speaker 1: wood spirit version of Sailor Moon, but that would be
Speaker 1: more of a Yodorowski vision of the tail. M hmm, Well,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of a lot of process there. I
Speaker 1: don't really have an answer, um except I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's it's hard to imagine Tom Waits or or Pearlman
Speaker 1: in the role. I just I can't say I like
Speaker 1: both of these guys a lot uh in the roles
Speaker 1: that they are right for. But yeah, I mean, Pearlman
Speaker 1: is is Bomba Dial would be a very kind of
Speaker 1: grumpy growley Bomba Dial Pearlman is. I think Pearlman is
Speaker 1: just way off Tom Waits. I don't know that that
Speaker 1: could work with the right kind of irony doll Marvy door. Yeah. Finally,
Speaker 1: Sebastian says, I'm hoping you're planning on Dune themed episodes
Speaker 1: at some point to go along with the new adaptation.
Speaker 1: I guess it means the new movie. Uh. I don't
Speaker 1: know what else would mean. Obviously means the new movie. Um.
Speaker 1: When I was a kid in the nineties, whenever I
Speaker 1: was asked if I were a Star Trek or Star
Speaker 1: Wars fan, and back then it was still aggressively guarded
Speaker 1: as a false dichotomy, my answer was always Dune. Good answer, Sebastian. Uh.
Speaker 1: The the email continues. Unfortunately, I don't think a movie
Speaker 1: adaptation will ever do the material justice and will always
Speaker 1: land in favor of an animated mini series, something like
Speaker 1: the moody atmosphere of Samurai Jack's gorgeous matt backgrounds as
Speaker 1: he wandered the Earth, somehow blended with the frenetic surrealist
Speaker 1: modernism of the old Eon Flux cartoon. Science fiction and
Speaker 1: fantasy are usually only as good as their worst special effect,
Speaker 1: and honestly I trust animators more than cg artists anyway,
Speaker 1: keep up the good work, Sebastian. Well, I mean, obviously,
Speaker 1: I'm excited to see the new Done film. I guess
Speaker 1: by the time this publishes, it will be it'll be
Speaker 1: out in the States. Uh so you're you're listening to
Speaker 1: to the me of the past that has not actually
Speaker 1: seen it yet. But I'm excited for it and I
Speaker 1: have I have high hopes that it will deliver. As
Speaker 1: for upcoming episodes of the show about Done related topics,
Speaker 1: I think we're going to try and get into this
Speaker 1: a little bit in November, UM, so, so stick with us.
Speaker 1: Hopefully everyone will still be enthusiastic about Done um during
Speaker 1: the month of November, and we'll we'll we'll explore something.
Speaker 1: We we have several ideas. I am also extremely excited
Speaker 1: to see the movie. I yeah, I mean, I guess
Speaker 1: you could both be very excited to see the movie
Speaker 1: and think that it could be great, while also believing
Speaker 1: that it will be sort of hard for any movie
Speaker 1: ever to really fully capture the feeling of the novel.
Speaker 1: But I guess you could. People could probably feel that
Speaker 1: way about any novel. I mean that may be true,
Speaker 1: specially of something like Doing, But I don't know. I'm
Speaker 1: I'm very excited for the movie. Yeah, yeah, I mean obviously,
Speaker 1: a book like this, it means a lot a lot
Speaker 1: to a lot of people, and it's had a lot
Speaker 1: of time to to find a sort of finalized form
Speaker 1: in your mind. Uh So, yeah, you have to go
Speaker 1: into it with with without you know, too lofty of expectations.
Speaker 1: You know, you're not going to get your perfect mental
Speaker 1: vision of doing it's it's someone else's and more than
Speaker 1: one person's, uh, a vision of what this world would
Speaker 1: be like. So yeah, I'm I'm open to it, and
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to it, all right. This next one
Speaker 1: comes to us from Nick. Nick writes, in a recent episode,
Speaker 1: you said you couldn't think of a single example of
Speaker 1: major key music being used non ironically in a horror film.
Speaker 1: I think I have an example for you, theree film
Speaker 1: The wicker Man. It's famous soundtrack includes British folk songs
Speaker 1: and nursery rhymes and original compositions by Paul Giovanni, including
Speaker 1: the sublime Willows theme. The music is primarily in major
Speaker 1: key and upbeat, although it is often haunting an eerie
Speaker 1: in a way you can't put your finger on. No doubt,
Speaker 1: there is an ironic significance to the music, But I
Speaker 1: don't think it's the obvious bait and switch sort of
Speaker 1: irony you were talking about. The cheerfulness of the music
Speaker 1: is genuine, just as the cheerfulness of the inhabitants of
Speaker 1: Summer Isle is genuine, notwithstanding their sinister intentions toward the hero. Really,
Speaker 1: the music of The Wickerman is the key ingredient in
Speaker 1: its unique weirdness and creepiness. It's certainly unlike most horror music,
Speaker 1: just as the film itself is an atypical horror movie
Speaker 1: best regards. Oh my god, Nick, how did I not
Speaker 1: think of this? The Wickerman is one of my favorite
Speaker 1: horror movies. It's definitely a favorite in in our house.
Speaker 1: I know it's one of my wife's favorite as well.
Speaker 1: We we tend to watch it not in October actually,
Speaker 1: because it's it's seasonally appropriate for me first. We we
Speaker 1: often watch it. We watch it most years on me first.
Speaker 1: And Yeah, the music absolutely makes the film. The corn
Speaker 1: Riggs in Barley Riggs song every time we watched the movie.
Speaker 1: For weeks afterwards, we're walking around the house corn Riggs
Speaker 1: and Barley Riggs. Yeah, it's it's unstoppable. I haven't seen
Speaker 1: it in a good while, I should fire it up again.
Speaker 1: I mean, as for whether or not there is an
Speaker 1: irony intended in the music, I mean, I certainly feel
Speaker 1: a sense of irony in the music. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of the pleasure of the movie lies in the
Speaker 1: cheerfulness of the Pagans and it you know, uh, the
Speaker 1: way Christopher Lee just kind of confidently booms out joyful
Speaker 1: pronouncements in front of the crowds of of masked islanders.
Speaker 1: It's uh that that's where a lot of the fun lies.
Speaker 1: And I think the same that same spirit is there
Speaker 1: in the jolly music. Like I feel like the sense
Speaker 1: of irony it takes to appreciate the music in that
Speaker 1: movie is exactly what the the supposed protagonist of the
Speaker 1: movie lacks. When when you know, Christopher Lee says to him,
Speaker 1: does the sight of the Young will refresh you? And
Speaker 1: you know, and he's he's just a grump. He says, no,
Speaker 1: it does not refresh me. All right. This next message
Speaker 1: comes from Lee. Lie says, Hello, my friend a film
Speaker 1: composer and I a sound designer, just finished listening to
Speaker 1: your episode on Scary Music and loved it. We had
Speaker 1: a couple of thoughts about the episode. We wanted to
Speaker 1: share one in regards to the minor key being dissonant.
Speaker 1: I theorized that the minor third doesn't occur in the
Speaker 1: overtone series until very late. He wanted to point out
Speaker 1: that children's music and modern pop uh tend to have
Speaker 1: minor thirds because they're easier to sing. I'll have to
Speaker 1: take your word for it on that, because I again
Speaker 1: don't don't fully understand what that's referring to there. But
Speaker 1: then this next point, I thought it is a great one.
Speaker 1: Lee goes on. We were surprised you didn't mention the
Speaker 1: d s ear a a four notes sequence, an octave displacement,
Speaker 1: a broad distance between high pitches and low rumbles, common
Speaker 1: in spooky films. These might be fun research tangents. Yes,
Speaker 1: we can definitely come back to this, especially I've been
Speaker 1: thinking about the DS era. So this is a four
Speaker 1: notes sequence that you will recognize from Probably initially your
Speaker 1: brain will lock onto it in one movie score, but
Speaker 1: then you'll notice it all over the place, usually in dire,
Speaker 1: dark kind of scenes, especially in horror movies. It comes
Speaker 1: from medieval monks Chance, I think from from funeral Chance,
Speaker 1: but it's used in all kinds of film scores. One
Speaker 1: place it's very iconic is it's the first four notes
Speaker 1: in the classic main theme to the Shining by Wendy Carlos.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. You you hear versions of
Speaker 1: that and a lot of different bits of film composition.
Speaker 1: So I agree that could absolutely be something that's really
Speaker 1: fun to explore in more detail in the future because
Speaker 1: it has a lot of different It pops up all
Speaker 1: over the place, and has interesting historical and religious themes
Speaker 1: associated with it. Now you I think you mentioned off
Speaker 1: Mike ear there that we also see this in the
Speaker 1: Simpsons theme song or some version. Oh no, that's the
Speaker 1: tri tone, that's the try tone. Okay. I was wondering
Speaker 1: about it because, um, in a second, this particular listener
Speaker 1: mentions another film that I'm pretty sure has Danny Elfman music,
Speaker 1: and I was wondering if there's something about Danny Elfman's
Speaker 1: music that is that tends to be inherently creepy. I
Speaker 1: was just thinking about this because we just watched Beetlejuice
Speaker 1: for the first time with with my son, and uh,
Speaker 1: great first of it. Well yeah, well forty of so
Speaker 1: the music is is is great but also my son
Speaker 1: did not like the music. He in fact, he requested
Speaker 1: that the movie be be turned down somewhat and subtitles
Speaker 1: be put on because the music was too much for him. Uh.
Speaker 1: He also was not particularly fond of the film. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff in Beetle Juice that doesn't really
Speaker 1: hold up, you know, and it has that Uh Beetle
Speaker 1: Juices is wildly inappropriate. Um the character he's not a
Speaker 1: good ghost and he does not learn anything. Um. That
Speaker 1: being said, there there there's a lot of interesting stuff
Speaker 1: in the film. I did like the many of the
Speaker 1: sets and costumes and some of the ideas well. It
Speaker 1: was one of those confusing things where they made a
Speaker 1: kid's cartoon out of it, which makes you just sort
Speaker 1: of assume, if you haven't seen the movie in a while,
Speaker 1: that it's appropriate for children. And I don't think it is, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: Beetle Juices. Beetlejuice is like a nasty, weird, unpleasant character. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's a creeper, you know, and he tries to take
Speaker 1: a child bride. It's, um, it's it's a weird film.
Speaker 1: But but yeah, it does have one of those signature
Speaker 1: Danny Elfman scores that um it, you know, moves along.
Speaker 1: It seems to have a fair amount of energy, but
Speaker 1: also uh, you know, feels kind of brooding and creepy. Well,
Speaker 1: I guess connecting to what you're saying. Lee also says
Speaker 1: we also talked to another composer friend, and Edwards scissor
Speaker 1: Hands is the closest we could come to a horror
Speaker 1: flick that has a main theme and a major key.
Speaker 1: I honestly don't remember it all what the music and
Speaker 1: Edward scissor Hands is like, but I mean it's definitely
Speaker 1: Danny Elfman. It is Danny Elfman. But but yeah, nothing's
Speaker 1: coming to mind on that. I don't mean that as
Speaker 1: an insult. I just mean I don't remember. I mean
Speaker 1: I might be able to if you played it for me,
Speaker 1: I might be able to guess that it that that
Speaker 1: it is in fact a Danny Elfman score. They there's
Speaker 1: a certain sound that's undeniable. I guess I tend to
Speaker 1: think of a lot of kind of beeps and boops
Speaker 1: and stuff. Is that the is that the music theory name?
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, Annie Elfman score tends to sound
Speaker 1: like a like like a weird black car riding across
Speaker 1: a strange landscape. Um, that's or maybe it's just because
Speaker 1: I've just heard it's I've I've so associated it with
Speaker 1: Tim Burton films, So that's just kind of it, all right.
Speaker 1: Before we move on to some weird how cinema stuff here,
Speaker 1: I have a quick bit of listener mail from Discord. Yes,
Speaker 1: yes we do. We do have the stuff to blow
Speaker 1: your mind Discord. Um, it's always tricky to steer people
Speaker 1: towards it because I think you need a link for it.
Speaker 1: So if you want the link for the Discord, just
Speaker 1: email us. You'll find the email address at the end
Speaker 1: of this episode. Anyway, Fletch on Discord shares her Nay.
Speaker 1: The hunter mentioned in today's episode on Weather and Ghosts
Speaker 1: featured in an old BBC show, Robin of Sherwood, that
Speaker 1: leaned pretty heavily into pre Christian British myth. It also
Speaker 1: had Sean Connery's son Jason as a second incarnation of
Speaker 1: Robin in later seasons, and a young Ray Winstone as
Speaker 1: Will Scarlett. The music for the show was done by Klanad,
Speaker 1: the band in You was in before her solo career,
Speaker 1: uh and they included a YouTube compilation of various bits
Speaker 1: that featured her the Hunter. I had to look this
Speaker 1: show up. It looks looks pretty fun. I noticed that
Speaker 1: Richard O'Brien shows up in it and plays a wizard
Speaker 1: for a number of episodes, and combine that with a
Speaker 1: cool score, and I'm potentially interested. Looks like you can
Speaker 1: you can access it via some streaming sides today. Well,
Speaker 1: I was trying to look up and see if I've
Speaker 1: seen Jason Connery in anything. Looks like he was in
Speaker 1: wish Master three. I didn't. I didn't see wish Master three.
Speaker 1: That's so that's one where you don't even have the
Speaker 1: original wish Master in it, right. I think that's one
Speaker 1: where you get up. Yeah, you get a different a
Speaker 1: different gen care actor in that they've perverted the original
Speaker 1: spirit of wish Master the first. I the first wish
Speaker 1: Master is worth watching for the first ten minutes or
Speaker 1: so because it has this prologue that's uh, that's that
Speaker 1: sets out to be this kind of um Arabian Nights
Speaker 1: horror story where there's just like out of control gin
Speaker 1: magic and people are transforming into bees and skeletons are
Speaker 1: walking and uh, it has a really fun flavor to
Speaker 1: it and you're you're watching and you're thinking this, this
Speaker 1: is pretty great. I could I could watch this movie.
Speaker 1: And then that ends and you're transported to just, you know,
Speaker 1: your typical modern day horror movie environment, and it, you know,
Speaker 1: it quickly gets a little bit repetitive and I need
Speaker 1: to be smester to this thing and get us to
Speaker 1: modern day l A two. I don't know which one
Speaker 1: it is. That was too for sure. Yeah, so yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's one of those movies. But I highly
Speaker 1: recommend the first ten minutes of wish Master. It's pretty fun.
Speaker 1: Lots and lots of practical effects are thrown in there.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's really cool. Jason Connery, however, is not
Speaker 1: in it. Well I'm gonna have to check out this
Speaker 1: hernad the Hunter link. Okay. This next message comes in
Speaker 1: response to the Ghosts of the Wind and Rain episode.
Speaker 1: This is from Ann and says, Hey, Robert and Joe.
Speaker 1: I love the show. I've been listening for several years
Speaker 1: and I've written in as well. I'm especially appreciative of
Speaker 1: the six episodes a week format, so thank you. I
Speaker 1: have a huge affinity for the paranormal, multicultural folk tales
Speaker 1: and mythological creatures. I balanced these fanciful and supernatural topics
Speaker 1: with your podcast, so whenever the scientific and fantastical elements meet,
Speaker 1: I'm all ears. In reference to your ghosts in the
Speaker 1: Wind and Rain episode, you question if there are skeptics
Speaker 1: within the paranormal field. My answer is yes. Many of
Speaker 1: the investigators and those who are interested in the topic
Speaker 1: refer to themselves as quote open minded skeptics. They try
Speaker 1: to find non paranormal explanations for paranormal events. Take that
Speaker 1: approach how you will. Personally, I've never had any supernatural
Speaker 1: experiences as far as I know. Uh. And then, on
Speaker 1: a different topic, the monster Fact episodes are delightful. I
Speaker 1: have a possible topic for you, the var Uh. I'm
Speaker 1: sure how to say this, the Var Dogger or Var Tiger.
Speaker 1: Besides being a heavy metal Christian band from Norway, disease
Speaker 1: of course, Uh is a Norwegian term for a spirit
Speaker 1: predecessor of Vartigare is likened to an auditory dopple ganger
Speaker 1: that occurs before the arrival of the person that is
Speaker 1: being imitated. Thank you for all your research that you
Speaker 1: put into your topics. The content is always engaging and
Speaker 1: thank you for taking time to read my email and interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not familiar with that one, but I'm always excited
Speaker 1: to find out about new fulkloric creatures and monsters. Regarding
Speaker 1: paranormal investigators who are skeptical of the reality of paranormal phenomena,
Speaker 1: I guess it's true that that such figures must exist,
Speaker 1: and you know, there are skeptics of various sorts who
Speaker 1: dabble in this kind of thing all the time. I
Speaker 1: guess we were wondering about if this is somebody's main gig,
Speaker 1: if if they'd be likely to take a skeptical approach um.
Speaker 1: And and one thing I know is that, though I
Speaker 1: think this is not who you are talking about, there
Speaker 1: are some people just a heads up, who, like I've
Speaker 1: looked into before, who describe themselves as skeptics. But then
Speaker 1: when you start listening to the stuff they're saying, they're
Speaker 1: actually just full blown ghost realists. They're just like and
Speaker 1: then there was a demon possession here, and you know,
Speaker 1: and so they're just fully on board. But I guess
Speaker 1: trying to get extra sort of cred by calling themselves
Speaker 1: skeptical interesting. But I'm not saying that the people you're
Speaker 1: talking about are like that. I'm just saying I know
Speaker 1: there are people like that. I mean, I think a
Speaker 1: part of it again comes down to the the entertainment
Speaker 1: value of it. I think what we're talking about before,
Speaker 1: like it seems like there's going to be a tendency
Speaker 1: to lean into the idea of I want to believe. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know how interesting a ghost hunter is that if
Speaker 1: they have a poster on their wall that says, I,
Speaker 1: I don't really want to believe, I don't believe, and
Speaker 1: I don't particularly expect to find evidence supporting uh, the
Speaker 1: existence of these things. Yeah, but I guess one of
Speaker 1: the one of the things I should drive come and
Speaker 1: drive driven this phone before is that I guess if
Speaker 1: there's a balance of the two energies, you know, if
Speaker 1: there's sort of a what if this is real? But
Speaker 1: then you you base that. In fact, I think that
Speaker 1: was one of the big failings of of the the
Speaker 1: episodes of UM of Unsolved Mysteries that I watched when
Speaker 1: I was a kid that would get into some sort
Speaker 1: of paranormal topics where either they didn't or I certainly
Speaker 1: don't remember them getting into the skeptical counter arguments. Um.
Speaker 1: Maybe they did, and it just did not have as
Speaker 1: much of an effect on my young brain as the
Speaker 1: as the what if arguments. But I felt like I
Speaker 1: didn't encounter any kind of like proper skeptical reaction to
Speaker 1: these ideas until I was a grown person. I remember, well, again,
Speaker 1: this is just going to be off kind of vague
Speaker 1: memories mostly, but I remember them sort of coming out
Speaker 1: both angles of some of these stories. But it felt
Speaker 1: like at least through the uh, I don't know, music
Speaker 1: and editing choices and stuff, and there was very much
Speaker 1: a finger on the scale for whatever the weirder interpretation was,
Speaker 1: because you know, it's more fun. Yeah, Actually it's not
Speaker 1: necessarily more fun. It's just easier to make that side fun.
Speaker 1: It takes more work to find the fun in in
Speaker 1: naturalistic explanations. That's the moral of today's episode. There is
Speaker 1: fun in naturalistic explanations for weird stuff. It's just you
Speaker 1: just gotta work to find it. Now, here's a question
Speaker 1: I and I I have not watched an episode of
Speaker 1: Unseelf Mysteries in quite a long time. But of course
Speaker 1: most of the content on Unsolf Mysteries was about unsolved mysteries.
Speaker 1: They were about crimes perpetrated by humans, and the and
Speaker 1: the a quest for justice, you know, asking people if
Speaker 1: you have any information about these crimes, you know, called
Speaker 1: in or write in. I forget how you know how
Speaker 1: they were reaching out to who love viewers? But uh
Speaker 1: in those cases they I don't remember them opening up
Speaker 1: the vault and saying, um, we don't know if people
Speaker 1: did this. It's possible they were aliens or big feet
Speaker 1: as reference in our other episodes, we can't rule out
Speaker 1: cryptids or aliens. Folks know those episodes tended to or
Speaker 1: those of those uh sections of the of the show,
Speaker 1: those those segments, they tended to be pretty sure that
Speaker 1: humans were the were the reason that bad things were happening. Right,
Speaker 1: So Robert Stack is narrating this event where I don't know, somebody,
Speaker 1: some guy gets like a bag thrown over his head
Speaker 1: and he's thrown into the trunk of a car, and
Speaker 1: nobody knows where he disappeared to And what if it
Speaker 1: was an elf that did that? Could have been an elf,
Speaker 1: could have been a ghost. We don't, We don't know.
Speaker 1: This is actually a really good idea for a reverse show.
Speaker 1: We should keep this in the back pocket, or all
Speaker 1: we do is explain very naturally explicable phenomena in terms
Speaker 1: of bizarre supernatural occurrences. Yeah, I kind of want to
Speaker 1: wish I could go back in time and um and
Speaker 1: kind of prank call then number that they had. I
Speaker 1: could have been like, yeah, I have information regarding that
Speaker 1: missing person's case you profiled an episode, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: three twenty two or whatever. I'll be like, God, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's probably those alien beings capable of faster
Speaker 1: than light travel because they can pretty much do anything,
Speaker 1: so they probably were the ones responsible for that that kidnap.
Speaker 1: Are you familiar with Dragger? Okay, we got one last
Speaker 1: message about weird house cinema, Rob, Do you want to
Speaker 1: do this one? Alright? Pat writes in you guys are
Speaker 1: the best. Thank you for Halloween three. Well we we
Speaker 1: we can't take all the credit for Halloween three season
Speaker 1: of the Witch. But I know what, I know what
Speaker 1: Pat saying. Pa continues in the discussion, you mentioned the
Speaker 1: lack of explanation from Michael Myers. I remember reading a
Speaker 1: novelization of the movie that has a Solwin prologue which
Speaker 1: explains that he is an ancient curse. This is true?
Speaker 1: Is he is he a curse. I just said they
Speaker 1: they get into that in later movies. I don't know
Speaker 1: how clearly anybody came up with that idea, but by say,
Speaker 1: the sixth movie, definitely. Maybe it's there in the fifth
Speaker 1: one too, I'm not sure. Somewhere in those horrible later
Speaker 1: sequels they start saying, oh, yeah, he's some kind of
Speaker 1: ancient druid magic thing. I don't know. Okay, why did
Speaker 1: they never do a lepri con crossover. That would have
Speaker 1: been perfect? Oh that would have been good. Yeah, except
Speaker 1: I think the leprechron sequels have so much more class
Speaker 1: than the later sequels. Yeah, all right, Um, anyway, Pat
Speaker 1: continues blood sacrifice to ancient Irish gods at the Autumn
Speaker 1: Festival is at the root season of the which provides
Speaker 1: answers to the questions about Michael Myer's behavior. The sequel, therefore,
Speaker 1: is an extension of the narrative. There is more than
Speaker 1: a hint that the ancient Irish gods find modern Halloween
Speaker 1: celebrations to be an insult. This is why the children
Speaker 1: must be punished. Thanks ever so much for the wonderful entertainment, Pat.
Speaker 1: So it's blasphemy. Tricker trading is blast for me? And
Speaker 1: Michael Myers has been sent by the ancient Irish gods
Speaker 1: to punish us. He's like a modern day Kuhlan who's
Speaker 1: coming out. He's doing his warp spasm all the way
Speaker 1: through the Halloween season to just embrace the modern, secularized
Speaker 1: Halloween world with a knife, you know, low energy warp
Speaker 1: spas um. Yeah. I think this is maybe a question
Speaker 1: we're going to have to solve in some future Weird
Speaker 1: House Cinema episode. We're gonna have to like fully track
Speaker 1: down and systematize the mythology of the Halloween series and
Speaker 1: figure out what order people came up with, what ideas,
Speaker 1: and how it all fits together. I think it'll be brutal.
Speaker 1: What's the what's the prevailing wisdom nowadays? Is he just
Speaker 1: like a revenant? Or or maybe I guess Jason is
Speaker 1: more of a revenant. What's Jason revenant? I don't know
Speaker 1: what Michael Myers is, honestly, I mean, and I think
Speaker 1: that's the best way. I mean that that's the spirit
Speaker 1: of the original movie. Is like he's completely inexplic a bowle.
Speaker 1: He doesn't make any sense. It's just like, uh, it's
Speaker 1: a terror from out of nowhere. And for no reason,
Speaker 1: and that's what makes the first movie so good. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the impulse to over explain is something that
Speaker 1: must constantly be resisted by by sequel filmmakers. I mean,
Speaker 1: how often when we when we find out the true
Speaker 1: backstory behind whatever thing it was in the original movie
Speaker 1: of some series, is that really satisfying? It's it's pretty rare. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't come off offhand. I'm having trouble thinking of
Speaker 1: an example of it ever ever really working or even
Speaker 1: if it does work, Um, you know, you're creating something,
Speaker 1: you end up creating something new, and you end up
Speaker 1: taking people off, uh for example Highland or two. You
Speaker 1: know a film that did. We both find a lot
Speaker 1: of enjoyment, and I mean part of I think ultimately
Speaker 1: they came up with a pretty good, uh sequel idea there.
Speaker 1: I think that was a pretty good direction to go in.
Speaker 1: But it's a direction that inevitably was going to take
Speaker 1: off fans of the original because it was such a
Speaker 1: diversion from what they knew, and that the first Thilander
Speaker 1: film does have a lot of mystery. Why are their immortals?
Speaker 1: And nobody knows? They just are and they do this
Speaker 1: thing isn't it so much more fun to wonder about
Speaker 1: that question than to have it answered? Yeah, and then again,
Speaker 1: I guess, you know, especially today, you end up with
Speaker 1: if something is popular, than fans are going to form
Speaker 1: their own theories, and then if those theories don't turn
Speaker 1: out to be true or partially true, then that can
Speaker 1: also add to some of their discomfort with with a
Speaker 1: piece of media. So yeah, the mystery is is often
Speaker 1: the best. I mean, these are these are often creatures
Speaker 1: and things that come out of the unknown, and that's
Speaker 1: that's part of the fabric of what makes them interesting.
Speaker 1: But I think we've already spoken and now it's Cannon.
Speaker 1: He's co Colan and that can't be taken back. Uh.
Speaker 1: The only way to defeat him is with the sting right,
Speaker 1: That would be neat to the butt right right, Well,
Speaker 1: I guess he would kill with the sting right to
Speaker 1: the but that's that that would be the way it
Speaker 1: would work. Yeah. Has he ever killed with a sting? Right?
Speaker 1: I don't think any of it think the major flashes
Speaker 1: have killed with stingrays. There is a really profoundly troubling
Speaker 1: lack of stingray presence in in modern horror films. I
Speaker 1: mean you could do it too, because all you have
Speaker 1: to do is have your slash or go to a
Speaker 1: local aquarium where there are touch tanks. I mean there's
Speaker 1: also potentially, at least in the movie, you can have
Speaker 1: a shark tank there and shark versus Michael Myers or
Speaker 1: versus Jason. I mean that that sounds fun. I would
Speaker 1: probably watch that. Oh my god, it's the perfect perfect
Speaker 1: franchise crossover, Halloween meets Deep bluesy Michael Myers versus super
Speaker 1: smart sharks, right right, yeah, yeah, yeah, I can get
Speaker 1: behind the idea. Yeah, especially like what if they end
Speaker 1: they have the brain of Jason. That's the thing. Is
Speaker 1: that a smart brain. It's well, I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's smart. It's it's it's very focused when it once
Speaker 1: it gets going, it's hard to It doesn't let an
Speaker 1: idea go disciplined. He's got sticktuitiveness. Okay, Jason has all
Speaker 1: those job interview qualities. Yeah he does. Okay, I think
Speaker 1: we gotta call it there. All right, We're gonna go Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll go ahead and close the book on this one.
Speaker 1: But we'll be back next week with more listener mail.
Speaker 1: On Monday followed by New Core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays,
Speaker 1: New Artifact or Monster episodes on Wednesday, and then on Friday.
Speaker 1: That's weird, how cinema, that's our time to discuss a
Speaker 1: strange film. Uh yeah, that's that's it. What what do
Speaker 1: you have to add there, Joe? Nothing? Oh well wait, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: we can do that. Um. So, if you want to
Speaker 1: get in touch with us, send us an email. Have
Speaker 1: your own thoughts featured on a future listener mail episodes.
Speaker 1: Uh no, promises. We get a lot of email, but well,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, you write us something good, we'll
Speaker 1: do our best to include it. Um. You can email
Speaker 1: us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: Oh and thanks to Seth. As always, we're all out
Speaker 1: of order at the end here thanks to our producer
Speaker 1: Seth Nicholas Johnson. Again. That email address is contact at
Speaker 1: stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio. For more
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