Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey are you welcome to Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind? My name is Robert Lamb and Julie Douglas. Julie,
Speaker 1: what did your history with horror movies and dating? Horror
Speaker 1: movies and relationships? So it goes way back because I
Speaker 1: remember my brother and I staying up late and watching
Speaker 1: the Jack the Ripper and I'm like six maybe, and uh,
Speaker 1: it made a huge impression on both of us. And
Speaker 1: I remember, even though he was older, he was like,
Speaker 1: you gotta walk me down the hall, you gotta look
Speaker 1: behind the shower curtain. And so I began to really
Speaker 1: have that feeling like something was out there lurking. But
Speaker 1: I gotta say, in terms of dating, it wasn't like
Speaker 1: a you know, a fifties drive in. I wasn't like, oh,
Speaker 1: let's go watch something. It wasn't like the beginning of
Speaker 1: the Thriller video, which I was like, oh it's scary
Speaker 1: hat here. Well. Um, Interestingly enough, I anytime my wife
Speaker 1: and I are trying to determine how long we've known
Speaker 1: each other, we have to look up the Saw movies
Speaker 1: on on Internet movie database. Um not because the Saw
Speaker 1: movies are particularly near and dear to our heart. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, the first one was okay in some respects,
Speaker 1: but it's you know, it's not something I cherished. But
Speaker 1: we shortly after we met each other, we went and
Speaker 1: saw the first Saw movie in the theater, so we
Speaker 1: know that if we can determine for a while, they
Speaker 1: were putting out one a year, so we knew that
Speaker 1: we could see which which Saw a movie they were on,
Speaker 1: and that would tell us how long we've known each other.
Speaker 1: But now we have to do a little math. But
Speaker 1: we have to find that starting point by answering the
Speaker 1: question when did the first Saw movie come out? Wow?
Speaker 1: So that just shows I think it's very reflective of
Speaker 1: your deep history with horror movies and that genre in general,
Speaker 1: because my husband and I would probably look at the
Speaker 1: Coen Brothers movies and be like, Okay, which one was
Speaker 1: the one that we saw together but didn't know it's
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the relationship. But you yes, that
Speaker 1: vast history of the genre. Well, even though I you know,
Speaker 1: I certainly hold the Cohen Brothers films far above most
Speaker 1: bits of horror that I've seen, But for some reason,
Speaker 1: a horror movie that I don't even particularly like all
Speaker 1: that much is the signifier. But but you know, from
Speaker 1: an early age, I remember being hit over the head
Speaker 1: with that trope though of if you're going on a date,
Speaker 1: what do you do? You take the person to a movie,
Speaker 1: and and generally it needs to be a horror movie
Speaker 1: because you saw this. You see this in films. You
Speaker 1: see this. I horror movies as well, especially the older
Speaker 1: ones that would come on, you know, on TV in
Speaker 1: the middle of a Saturday. You'd see these old films
Speaker 1: which would show uh, people in the nineteen fifties and
Speaker 1: sixties going to the drive in, right, going on dates
Speaker 1: and seeing a horror movie. Yeah, I mean, you're right.
Speaker 1: This is something that has actually sort of woven into
Speaker 1: our cultural fabric and it's a rite of passage in
Speaker 1: a way. And so I love that you guys that
Speaker 1: you and your wife's first date was a horror flame,
Speaker 1: because we're gonna talk about the ways in which it
Speaker 1: might influence our amorous feelings for others out there. Yes,
Speaker 1: and leading to the big question, does this actually work
Speaker 1: as an aphrodisiac? Does the haunted house actually empty into
Speaker 1: the bedroom? Uh, etcetera. So so we're gonna back up
Speaker 1: just a little bit and and talk about the effects
Speaker 1: of fear on the body, on the mind, because at
Speaker 1: every basic level, Uh, this should come into no surprise
Speaker 1: to anyone. We did not evolve to watch horror movies.
Speaker 1: Horror mos, we didn't. We we evolved to deal with
Speaker 1: frightening and or dangerous stimulation. But the horror movie in
Speaker 1: many cases stands as an example, as an example of
Speaker 1: supernormal stimuli, and and it's also a simulation. So we
Speaker 1: we have this unreal experience with fear that plays on
Speaker 1: our minds and on our bodies in the same way
Speaker 1: that actual lethal threats to do. Right. So you have
Speaker 1: a tiger, which is an actual threat and at one
Speaker 1: point when humans were part of the food chain, would
Speaker 1: have been a real problem, right, And we have bodies
Speaker 1: that can respond to that. On the other hand, we
Speaker 1: have the paper tigers of our mind, which come to
Speaker 1: life in the form of movies, and sometimes in mind
Speaker 1: is like, hey, I can't distinguish between the two. So
Speaker 1: we should talk about what's happening in the mind. And
Speaker 1: we'll also get to who this might be affecting the most.
Speaker 1: All right, So let's just let's just run through what happens.
Speaker 1: You're in the You're in the movie movie theater. You're
Speaker 1: and and therefore you are in the movie in a sense,
Speaker 1: you're immersing yourself in the experience. You're you're watching these
Speaker 1: fearful sights, you're hearing fearful things. Um, maybe you're spelling
Speaker 1: something fearful, depends on what kind of gimmick the the
Speaker 1: theater is throwing at you. But for the most part,
Speaker 1: we're talking about your ears and your eyes. So horror
Speaker 1: is running into your ears and your eyes to an
Speaker 1: almond shaped clump of neurons called the amygdala. There is
Speaker 1: located front and center in the brain, and it's vital
Speaker 1: to instantaneous emotional processing, especially surprisingly enough, love and pleasure.
Speaker 1: Uh So we've we've conducted in the past spring experiments
Speaker 1: on rats that have shown that damaging the amigola interferes
Speaker 1: with their capacity to feel fear as well. And this
Speaker 1: suggests an overlap between these seemingly opposite emotions of pleasure
Speaker 1: and fright. And we've touched on this before. Um and
Speaker 1: and when we see this kind of dual purposing a
Speaker 1: lot because because ultimately with the brain, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: some some cases you can point to a certain region
Speaker 1: of the brain to say, well, this is this lines
Speaker 1: up with this. But in many cases we see double duty.
Speaker 1: You see that that the different areas are involved in
Speaker 1: the processing of different different feelings, etcetera. So it shouldn't
Speaker 1: come as any surprise that we see, um, we see
Speaker 1: love and pleasure, we see fear and tear wound up
Speaker 1: in the same mechanisms. Yeah, we talked before about how
Speaker 1: the amingela processes pain, emotional pain and physical pain, and
Speaker 1: that the two are just so bound up together. So
Speaker 1: again there's there's no big surprise here that there's an
Speaker 1: overlap and pain and pleasure as well. So if you
Speaker 1: think about Freddie emerging from behind the door, or that
Speaker 1: chainsaw getting closer and closer to your neck, you think
Speaker 1: about your magdala getting all juiced up, unleashing a brain
Speaker 1: embody energizing cocktail of hormones energizing. Remember that you know,
Speaker 1: and while all this is happening, you also have your
Speaker 1: prefrontal cortex getting in on the game and saying it's okay,
Speaker 1: it is just a movie. And the result of that
Speaker 1: is a just kind of wave of pleasure because you
Speaker 1: know that you're in this domain where you're not actually
Speaker 1: going to get hurt, and yet you're you have all
Speaker 1: those energizing hormones and chemicals flowing through you. Yeah. All
Speaker 1: in about three seconds, You're amgala is is unleashing this
Speaker 1: this hormone cocktail. UH is prompting an already already busy
Speaker 1: adrenal glands to turn out cortisol, the stress hormone. High
Speaker 1: levels of cortisol can't impede insulin, causing a rising blood
Speaker 1: sugar a little extra fuel if case you need to
Speaker 1: punch something in the face or run away in the hills,
Speaker 1: You're you're gonna you know, breathing faster. You're taking in
Speaker 1: more oxygen. That way, your heart is racing to get
Speaker 1: that oxygen into your muscles. UH. Your your appetite stalls
Speaker 1: because you know the energy your body would use for
Speaker 1: digestion is diverted towards getting away from the mass maniac
Speaker 1: UH in your mind, if not in real life, You're
Speaker 1: you're potentially starting to sweat. Pupils are dilating, and the
Speaker 1: car the cortisol has saturated your blood stream at this
Speaker 1: point and feeds back into the amgala to boost the
Speaker 1: perception of danger. UH. So in this way, you know,
Speaker 1: reinforcing memory for the of the initial fright sittings may
Speaker 1: end up actually feeling a little jumpy afterwards. So anyway,
Speaker 1: all this is hitting within three seconds, which which really
Speaker 1: makes you look at the horror movie or any kind
Speaker 1: of artificial scare in a way. It's it's kind of
Speaker 1: like a drug. It's this artificial stimuli we take in
Speaker 1: and it and it causes these these physical responses. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and one of the more counterintuitive findings in the science
Speaker 1: of fear is that the stronger the negative emotions we're
Speaker 1: talking about, like anxiety and worry and fear, um, the
Speaker 1: more the person will enjoy that movie, that bit of
Speaker 1: horror in front of them. And that's where you see
Speaker 1: that the distress and delight really are interconnected because it
Speaker 1: is intrinsically a cathartic moment for the person. And another
Speaker 1: big thing to point out here is that within five
Speaker 1: seconds of of of bringing in this fearful stimuli, your
Speaker 1: nerve cells start to release endorphins to combat the injuries
Speaker 1: that you have probably sustained from the the act building
Speaker 1: maniac on the screen, and so your brain is also
Speaker 1: releasing dopamine. The neurotransmitter best known for giving you that
Speaker 1: feel good rush. Uh and also some property a neurotransmitter
Speaker 1: that we bring up a lot on the podcast because
Speaker 1: it's one of those, uh, those those key substances that
Speaker 1: plays a role in so many different emotional responses to
Speaker 1: the world. Yea, and that reminds me to you have
Speaker 1: mirror neurons in on the game as well. We've talked
Speaker 1: about that before, the mirror neurons that are essentially aping
Speaker 1: what they see in front of us in our brains.
Speaker 1: So I always think about this with a clockwork orange
Speaker 1: that the moment in which his eyes are being peeled back,
Speaker 1: I will instinctively, you know, cover my eye and try
Speaker 1: to prevent it because it feels like it's happening to me. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, even if it's a bad harmard with poorly
Speaker 1: defined characters, we can't help but invest a little of
Speaker 1: ourselves in that character. And then all the more so
Speaker 1: if they actually bothered to to to to develop the
Speaker 1: character and or have somebody you know, competent play that
Speaker 1: character and bring them to life on the screen. And uh.
Speaker 1: And the and the eye thing is interesting too to
Speaker 1: note because you see a film that just has injuries
Speaker 1: that consists of say, arms gett chopped offs and its
Speaker 1: getting chopped off. I mean, that kind of gore can
Speaker 1: can certainly have an effect, but so often it's those
Speaker 1: little moments that make the most sense to us and
Speaker 1: touches the most. The character uh scraping their their hand
Speaker 1: or or you know, something jabs into their side or
Speaker 1: they step on some glass. Those little injuries that are
Speaker 1: far more relatable because for the most part, you and
Speaker 1: I cannot relate to an individual getting their arms chopped off,
Speaker 1: their head chopped off. It's uh, you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: a real world injury, but it's not something that we
Speaker 1: can say, it's not necessarily WinCE worthy. But it's those
Speaker 1: little injuries that we can relate to, and those and
Speaker 1: when the more we relate to what's going on in
Speaker 1: the screen, the more we can immerse ourselves and what's happening. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's why the idea of something like saying needle going
Speaker 1: into your eye is so horrific because all of us
Speaker 1: have probably at one point or another hat and needle
Speaker 1: pierce or skin, so we are familiar with that or
Speaker 1: even poke in the eyes. So like the the immediate
Speaker 1: danger to the eye is not something that's beyond the scope. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you pair that with a vulnerability of the eye,
Speaker 1: and it just becomes like this terrible thing that you
Speaker 1: can't even imagine, but you can't imagine. So there you go.
Speaker 1: That's our next science on the web. We'll just deal
Speaker 1: with one only has clips from horror movies in which
Speaker 1: injuries are done to eyes. I know, if you guys
Speaker 1: thought that your wax footage about what looked like to
Speaker 1: be like a steak of croissant being pulled out of
Speaker 1: a ear was terrible, then you know, you just imagine
Speaker 1: this next video. Who is the really artsy filmmaker who
Speaker 1: did the scene with the razor blade in the eye
Speaker 1: that was it was? Ah, I don't know, but did
Speaker 1: you see I just so just to summarize again, do
Speaker 1: you can think of the horror movie experience or even
Speaker 1: the haunted attraction experience as a drug. So bear that
Speaker 1: in mind when we're talking about um people on a
Speaker 1: date partaking of the horror movie. If you're one person
Speaker 1: asking another person out on a date to a horror movie,
Speaker 1: you're basically saying, hey, do this drug with me, this
Speaker 1: drug that will have this this physical emotional effect on
Speaker 1: me and you right, and will both experience this to
Speaker 1: other There'll be this communal aspect and we'll both survive
Speaker 1: it together. It will come out on the other hand,
Speaker 1: And if you frame it that way, when you ask
Speaker 1: the madame a date, they I don't know. It depends
Speaker 1: on the individual. They might be more inclined to say yes,
Speaker 1: but they might be more inclined to say no and
Speaker 1: never speak to you again. But that is what the
Speaker 1: proposition actually is. When someone says, Hey, um, I know
Speaker 1: you're in my my physics class and we haven't really talked,
Speaker 1: but why don't you go watch the new Friday to
Speaker 1: thirdeenth movie with me? Let's metaphorically survive this together. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I might, I might go all right,
Speaker 1: So who might be watching these kinds of movies the
Speaker 1: most Well, we've talked about the type T personality before.
Speaker 1: We're talking about the new philiacs who crave new experiences.
Speaker 1: They get more of a jolt and they release more dopamine.
Speaker 1: So it would follow that perhaps a type T personality
Speaker 1: would be more amenable to getting the pants scared off
Speaker 1: of them. Yeah, someone who just is who just goes
Speaker 1: into the theater and says, just push my boundaries, push
Speaker 1: my buttons. You know, they're not They're not worried about
Speaker 1: any of their triggers being pulled on a particular movie.
Speaker 1: If anything, they want their triggers pulled, and they want
Speaker 1: all the triggers possible to be pulled. Yeah, they were like,
Speaker 1: I just jumped off a plan today. Bring it on
Speaker 1: what you got, And it's it's often hard to relate
Speaker 1: to people like that when it comes to U two
Speaker 1: movies to fiction written fiction, even because there they seem
Speaker 1: to have at times drastically different expectations of the subject matter.
Speaker 1: You know. But anyway, that's another digression for for another time.
Speaker 1: I think, um, now, who else might be juiced up
Speaker 1: by this? Teens and twenty somethings, which flows in nicely
Speaker 1: with the again the trope of the teenagers going to
Speaker 1: the drive in theater and watching something scary and winding
Speaker 1: up arm in arm and lip and lip at least
Speaker 1: lip and lip. I like that. Research fear research expert
Speaker 1: Edward Campbell says that older people have stimulation fatigue, like,
Speaker 1: for instance, do you have these these real horrors of
Speaker 1: life scaring you? There are things that are actual real threats.
Speaker 1: When you get older, like you know, there's looming tough
Speaker 1: that's always unpleasant. Also, you're just more aware of what's
Speaker 1: going on in the world. I mean, like I feel
Speaker 1: like I I see a trailer for a film, especially
Speaker 1: a horror film, that has to do with home invasion,
Speaker 1: It's like, I'm not going to see that. If I
Speaker 1: want to get frightened about the possibility of home invasion,
Speaker 1: you know, I'll just set in my house and listen
Speaker 1: to the news or something that's that doesn't take me
Speaker 1: out of my own experience. I know. My brother keeps saying,
Speaker 1: you gotta watch Cabin in the Woods, you gotta watch
Speaker 1: the Strangers, And I'm like, you know, I don't want
Speaker 1: to because I like to go to the mountains in
Speaker 1: a cabin a lot, and I don't want to now
Speaker 1: freight my experience there with these paper tigers. Well, Cavin
Speaker 1: in the Woods you should maybe see. Just know that
Speaker 1: there's a lot more going on than than meets the eye.
Speaker 1: It's not just a Cabin in the Woods film. It
Speaker 1: really plays with that trope a lot and goes into
Speaker 1: and ultimately goes into a more fantastic area. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: both of you have really great judgment when it comes
Speaker 1: to media. So I'm obviously gonna have to see this now.
Speaker 1: Although you promise this will not ruin my experience in
Speaker 1: the mountains. Unless you're going to a really weird mountain,
Speaker 1: I think you'll be fine. Okay, alright, So anyway, would
Speaker 1: it would make sense that older people are like, you
Speaker 1: know what, I don't need this necessarily. I don't find
Speaker 1: it as entertaining as I used to, because you know,
Speaker 1: when I was a young buck of sixteen, I was
Speaker 1: more likely to look for really intense experiences. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean just physically, you get older and you're maybe not
Speaker 1: up for the adrenaline pumping roller coaster ride of of
Speaker 1: a horror film. It's just you just don't want to
Speaker 1: feel it in your body. Um. And uh, And I'm
Speaker 1: not I'm not quite there yet, but I've I've I've
Speaker 1: certainly heard people make that argument. They say, I just
Speaker 1: can't do it just makes my heart race. I just
Speaker 1: don't want to go through it. And and I can
Speaker 1: understand that, especially again, when you think of the horror movie,
Speaker 1: the is the the artificial fear experience as a full
Speaker 1: body event. Yeah, it's funny. Um, I think I've mentioned
Speaker 1: this before, but before the birth of my daughter, I
Speaker 1: could watch anything, and it really wasn't that difficult for
Speaker 1: me to watch, um, you know, because I could very
Speaker 1: much say, oh, yeah, this is the willing suspension of disbelief,
Speaker 1: it's not real, so on and so forth. But after
Speaker 1: her I had her, I was everything was sort of like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is difficult to watch, including horror movies. So I've
Speaker 1: come out of that a bit, but it's not the
Speaker 1: same anymore. And it's also not the same for the
Speaker 1: people who make it obviously either. I remember reading an
Speaker 1: interview with Clive Barker where he was talking about looking
Speaker 1: back at some of his younger writings and and about how,
Speaker 1: you know now is as an older man, who's who,
Speaker 1: who's known people, who's who has died, you know, death
Speaker 1: has become more part of his reality. And therefore, looking
Speaker 1: back on his view of death in his earlier horror films,
Speaker 1: he says, you know, sometimes it's harder to relate to that.
Speaker 1: It just seems is a different person. Indeed. All right,
Speaker 1: so it's not just me out there having a different
Speaker 1: perspective on this. All right, We're gonna take a quick
Speaker 1: break and when we get back, we are going to
Speaker 1: talk about the thematic power of these movies. All right,
Speaker 1: we are back, and uh, you know, all that snack
Speaker 1: talk remind me that we are actually going to talk
Speaker 1: about products that eat during scary movies. But before we
Speaker 1: do that, let's talk about the thematic power of scary movies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because that's another huge thing to think about, because, as
Speaker 1: always um with humans, there's this sort of animal level,
Speaker 1: there's the I'm seeing something scary and then I'm bodily
Speaker 1: responding to it. But of course horror movies have a
Speaker 1: lot of baggage with them as well. Even a bad
Speaker 1: horror movie is is generally coming to you on the
Speaker 1: backbones of long standing tropes, long standing folk tales, long
Speaker 1: standing cultural fears. I mean, it's a it's a complex
Speaker 1: there's a complex undercurrent there, even if the director or
Speaker 1: actors or whoever responsible for this piece don't really have
Speaker 1: a clue what they're doing. Yeah, I feel like, um,
Speaker 1: I feel like writers and directors are tapping into these
Speaker 1: very ancient stories that we have been telling each other
Speaker 1: as cautionary tales. So you begin to see, obviously the
Speaker 1: tropes pop up again and again. Yeah, It's one of
Speaker 1: the reasons why I probably enjoy bad horror movies and
Speaker 1: bad genre films as much, if not more than than
Speaker 1: good ones, because you do see these accidents of genius.
Speaker 1: They'll be a bad film and like somehow they'll they'll
Speaker 1: have like a perfect scene, or the monster will will
Speaker 1: will somehow connect on a on a level that it's
Speaker 1: just out of keeping with the rest of the film,
Speaker 1: because they'll they'll they'll accidentally at times get it right. Um,
Speaker 1: they'll they'll tap into these these at times primal feelings. Now,
Speaker 1: I should also say that when we talk about this,
Speaker 1: we're talking about a very sort of hetero norm situation
Speaker 1: going on here that horror movies appeal to. So let's say,
Speaker 1: for instance, that your walk during a movie and all
Speaker 1: the guys in it generally are cads, right, there's no
Speaker 1: sort of night and shining armor. There is this idea,
Speaker 1: according to the site Killer Film, that that might put
Speaker 1: your male date attendee in a really good light. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, you could be watching all of this terrible
Speaker 1: uh sort of things unfold in front of you, and
Speaker 1: you might have this guy next to you who just
Speaker 1: took twenty dollars out of your wallet, but you don't
Speaker 1: have to worry about him hopefully gutting you like a
Speaker 1: fish later. Yeah, that's true. Um, you know, we're looking
Speaker 1: at an article how watching horror movies on dates can
Speaker 1: help you score by Serena Whitney at Killer Film and
Speaker 1: and she does bring up a number of interesting points,
Speaker 1: again in a very heteronormal uh sense here, but but yeah,
Speaker 1: you're watching a horror film. All of the men are horrible,
Speaker 1: even the ones that aren't bearing machetes. And then oftentimes
Speaker 1: there is at least this misguided attempt to have a
Speaker 1: strong female because you have that you have that lone
Speaker 1: survivor that one female that makes it to the end
Speaker 1: of the film. And granted, the character development is generally
Speaker 1: not gonna beete there. It's not gonna it's not going
Speaker 1: to be the kind of character that that feminist essays
Speaker 1: are written on, written about for years and years and years.
Speaker 1: But there's an idea of of female strength and male
Speaker 1: lacking there. Yeah. I was thinking even in the scream films,
Speaker 1: or at least the first one, the male that is
Speaker 1: supposed to be the one who is sensitive and perhaps
Speaker 1: the hero turns out to be actually the purp yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you know, could you can find examples of these
Speaker 1: all day long. Yeah, some of your more interesting films
Speaker 1: are aware of these tropes and then begin to play
Speaker 1: with them on some level or another. So so yeah, yeah, alright, Um,
Speaker 1: then you also get this kind of like symbolism that
Speaker 1: that's that's couched in there. So if you look at
Speaker 1: a movie like Predator or even the Alien franchise, what
Speaker 1: do you see? You see these creatures who have uh,
Speaker 1: there's no sensitive way to say this. They have these
Speaker 1: Jenna Talia like looking creatures that evoke the idea of
Speaker 1: vagina dentata ven jhona dentata. I feel like we've probably
Speaker 1: mentioned here a couple of times, is the idea that
Speaker 1: of Jinna might have teeth and attack you. And it's
Speaker 1: this very sort of grotesque rendering of the female body,
Speaker 1: and it taps into this fear of females and this
Speaker 1: rendering of females as monsters, as unholy and evil. And
Speaker 1: so it's interesting that in horror movies, uh you'll see
Speaker 1: some of this embedded. Yeah. Yeah, the monster's feminine plays
Speaker 1: a huge role in in more more horror films than
Speaker 1: we could We could count more horror properties and more
Speaker 1: horror tales. Um. So, yeah, when you're when you're going
Speaker 1: into a film, you're encountering the monstrous. The monstrous always
Speaker 1: has some level of symbolic power, right, because you're you're
Speaker 1: involving the animal and the hybrid coming together, and that
Speaker 1: ends up having some sort of symbolic meaning that you
Speaker 1: end up deciphering on on some level or another. And
Speaker 1: then when you throw in all of this uh, you know,
Speaker 1: yonic or or phallix symbolism, then suddenly there's there's gender politics.
Speaker 1: They're sexual issues at way. Uh again oftentimes just going
Speaker 1: on completely under the surface of the film. And and
Speaker 1: maybe the filmmakers themselves were not even aware of the
Speaker 1: symbols they were playing with, which I feel like plays
Speaker 1: into this idea of of hey, hussy watching you know
Speaker 1: that that you're a hussy, so why don't you just
Speaker 1: you know, submit to it. I mean, obviously they're not
Speaker 1: really command saying it, but there are those undertones there,
Speaker 1: which then are compounded by the fact that most scary
Speaker 1: movies have a ton of actual sex going on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's generally a great place to throw in your gratuitous
Speaker 1: nudity and uh and really. I mean I remember as
Speaker 1: far as like seeing nudity on film, like all the
Speaker 1: earliest examples of it. I feel like we're in horror
Speaker 1: films um or even like not even quite nudity, but
Speaker 1: just semi nude bodies. It would be like that scene
Speaker 1: an alien with the underwear, So that that in and
Speaker 1: of itself is kind of a a conflicting area where
Speaker 1: you end up having your your early ideas about sexuality
Speaker 1: are partially molded by films that are also full of
Speaker 1: bloodshed and problematic displays of sexuality and or gender, and
Speaker 1: along with with with poor character development. But at the
Speaker 1: very least, it's a very good possibility that when you
Speaker 1: go in to see a horror film there's also going
Speaker 1: to be a little bit of skin. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: think it's writing on the coat tails of what we
Speaker 1: talked about before, which is a certain amount of vulnerability
Speaker 1: wrapped up in nudity, which we've talked about before. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm even thinking about this. Have you ever seen that
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies French film called The Beast? No, but I've
Speaker 1: I've always wanted to because the VHS cover always calls
Speaker 1: out to me when I go to video Drone, the
Speaker 1: of course mecca of of of vhs and DVD rental
Speaker 1: here in in Atlanta, because you see that be steel
Speaker 1: hand reaching after a woman's bottom or is it just
Speaker 1: her flesh? I can't remember remember the cover art for it,
Speaker 1: but what I came away from that is that you know,
Speaker 1: there's of this beast, you know, stalking this woman and
Speaker 1: in the forest, and she's naked a lot of the time.
Speaker 1: And so it really comes down to sort of the
Speaker 1: rudimentary brass tacks of horror. You've got your vulnerability, You've
Speaker 1: got this creature that's after you, and you're in the woods,
Speaker 1: you're in unfamiliar territory being stalked. Now, I also want
Speaker 1: to throw in that that the Sigmen Freud, of course
Speaker 1: suggested that horror was appealing because it traffics and thoughts
Speaker 1: and feelings that have been repressed by the ego but
Speaker 1: which seemed vaguely familiar. So again, all of these symbolic
Speaker 1: ideas are are embedded in the meat of the horror,
Speaker 1: even if even if the creators were not aware of it.
Speaker 1: And just and when you play with the monster, when
Speaker 1: you're playing with the with with images of the monsters,
Speaker 1: you end up playing with weird uh alignments of these symbols. Um.
Speaker 1: I want to read that just a quick passage here.
Speaker 1: I want to read a quick passage here from Monster
Speaker 1: Culture by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen. It's one of the Essays
Speaker 1: and Speaking of Monsters, which is a collection of wonderful
Speaker 1: essays about the monsters and film monsters and fiction monsters
Speaker 1: and culture in general and what they mean. I recommend
Speaker 1: checking in that book out if this is it all
Speaker 1: your thing, But anyway, Cohen says, the monster is continually
Speaker 1: linked to forbidden practices in order to normalize and to enforce.
Speaker 1: The monster also attracts the same creatures who terrify and
Speaker 1: interdict can invote potent escapist fantasies. The linking of monstrosity
Speaker 1: with the forbidden makes the monster all the more appealing
Speaker 1: as a temporary aggress from constraint. The simultaneous repulsion and
Speaker 1: attraction at the core of the monster's composition accounts greatly
Speaker 1: for its continued cultural popularity. For the fact that the
Speaker 1: monster seldom can be contained in a simple binary dialectic.
Speaker 1: We distrust and loathe the monster at the same time
Speaker 1: we envy its freedom and perhaps it's sublime despair. The
Speaker 1: habitations of monsters are more than dark regions of uncertain danger.
Speaker 1: They are also realms of happy fantasy, horizons of liberation.
Speaker 1: Their monsters served as secondary bodies through which the possibilities
Speaker 1: of other genders, other sexual practices, and other social customs
Speaker 1: can be explored. And you know, right before we started
Speaker 1: the podcast, we were talking about literary criticism when we
Speaker 1: were talking about Jacques Lacan and Deridav who both took
Speaker 1: on language as saying, it is a coda for for
Speaker 1: the rules of how we behave in society or the
Speaker 1: ideas that we have, and it's heavily patriarchal. So it's
Speaker 1: interesting to think about that, um, the way that we
Speaker 1: are forming the symbols, which is part of language to
Speaker 1: inform the actual story unfolding before us. Indeed, all right,
Speaker 1: so we have this idea that we have the really
Speaker 1: powerful themes, and we have these mirror neurons working in
Speaker 1: our brains. We're responding to this chemical cocktail inside of us,
Speaker 1: and perhaps we inch closer together in a symbolic act
Speaker 1: of defending ourselves from the terror before us on the screen.
Speaker 1: Is there any evidence that watching scary movies can increase
Speaker 1: acts of humping. Well, that's that's the big question, right,
Speaker 1: And fortunately we do have a pretty key study that
Speaker 1: sheds some light on this. It doesn't necessarily answer all
Speaker 1: the questions, but it continues to stand as a as
Speaker 1: a pivotal study into this this question. Uh and uh.
Speaker 1: In this we're talking about the misattribution of arousal, which
Speaker 1: is the process whereby people make a mistake in assuming
Speaker 1: what is causing them to feel aroused. And it all
Speaker 1: comes down to this. Uh, this article heightened sexual attraction
Speaker 1: under conditions of high anxiety. And this is the study
Speaker 1: by psychologist Donald Dutton and author Aaron Um And it
Speaker 1: all has to do with in what is in a
Speaker 1: sense kind of a physical manifestation of a horror movie. Hey,
Speaker 1: a dangly bridge bridge. Yeah. And it's sometimes known as
Speaker 1: the Catalano suspension bridge experiment because they had eighty five
Speaker 1: males between the ages of eighteen and thirty five who
Speaker 1: would walk across one of two bridges over the couple
Speaker 1: in a river in Vancouver, Canada, and afterwards they were interviewed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a little bit more layered than that. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: you have the two bridges. One is The is definitely
Speaker 1: the scary bridge, the horror movie bridge, five ft wide,
Speaker 1: foot long bridge construction of wooden boards attached to wire cables.
Speaker 1: Perhaps you've walked on one of these before, but I
Speaker 1: can't stand them. They sway and there and then and
Speaker 1: it's it's hard enough when you're alone, but then inevitably
Speaker 1: there's gonna be some some jerkwad's gonna come come on
Speaker 1: the under the bridge right behind you and start jumping
Speaker 1: around and some type tea yeah, and then and then
Speaker 1: you're starting to freak out, and you know, crawling across
Speaker 1: the rest of it, I mean basically the rope bridge
Speaker 1: in the the second Indiana Jones movie. You know, that's
Speaker 1: that's the experience. Okay, so some people use that bridge.
Speaker 1: Other people though that we're going across the Control bridge,
Speaker 1: which was a solid wood bridge that was a little
Speaker 1: further upriver, and this is the constructed a heavy seater.
Speaker 1: It's not going anywhere. Nobody's jumping on this thing to
Speaker 1: make it sway around. It's solid. So they both crossed.
Speaker 1: Both groups crossed the bridges, and at the other end
Speaker 1: of the bridge, they're interviewed by a female conducting a
Speaker 1: survey and giving them all these these questions they have
Speaker 1: to answers. The guys who had crossed the scary bridge
Speaker 1: filled out their questionnaires with stronger sexual imagery than the
Speaker 1: men who had crossed the safe bridge. Now this is
Speaker 1: where it gets very interesting. Both groups were given a
Speaker 1: number where they could reach the female assistant in case
Speaker 1: they required any clarification on the surveys that they took,
Speaker 1: which would obviously give them a chance to follow up
Speaker 1: with her. Right the guys on the suspension bridge where
Speaker 1: five times is likely to call her the next day.
Speaker 1: So what's the idea here, I mean, what's going on? Well,
Speaker 1: the idea is that your body is aroused by the tear.
Speaker 1: You know, we're talking about this basic physical arousal again.
Speaker 1: You know, think back to what we're talking about with
Speaker 1: your your your heart is raising, your breathing faster, and
Speaker 1: you have all this dopamine rushing through through your system.
Speaker 1: You're feeling all of that, and then you're encountering this
Speaker 1: member of the opposite sex, and and you end up
Speaker 1: misattributing the cause of that arousal to the woman instead
Speaker 1: of the scary bridge. Uh and and this is all,
Speaker 1: of course all uh and of course all this has
Speaker 1: to do as well, supposedly with the with the chemical dopamine,
Speaker 1: which is gushing out when you feel that first rush
Speaker 1: of attraction or terror. Again comes back to the dual
Speaker 1: nature uh and the and the shared machinery for these
Speaker 1: positive and negative emotions. Yeah, because it's funny. Even though
Speaker 1: there is an uptick in dopamine, it's not like a
Speaker 1: gushing uptick. There is the feeling that it's gushing and
Speaker 1: you're gushing, and you feel emboldened by this. So it
Speaker 1: makes sense that the men were more likely to call
Speaker 1: because they're looking at this experience and thinking about it. Um. Now,
Speaker 1: there was a another I wouldn't say it was an
Speaker 1: experiment because it was on ABC's Catalyst program. There was
Speaker 1: an episode called The Science of Dating, How to Catch
Speaker 1: a Mate, in which the suspension bridge experiment was reversed.
Speaker 1: They had two groups of women who were tested to
Speaker 1: see if the same thing would happen. So the reporter
Speaker 1: on this, Dr. Paul Willis, recruited six women to ride
Speaker 1: what he called the Terrifying New Superman roller coaster, and
Speaker 1: then another six to go on Marvin the Martians Rocket,
Speaker 1: which Marvin the Martian is like a kitty ride. There's
Speaker 1: nothing thrilling, thrilling or scary about it. It sounds pretty fun.
Speaker 1: I would probably prefer that it does have sort of
Speaker 1: an adorable quality too, but I think I would ride both. Actually,
Speaker 1: So what happened next is that Willis hits on all
Speaker 1: the women on camera, So obviously there's some amusing stuff
Speaker 1: going on there. Now, five of the six women who
Speaker 1: rode the roller coaster were up for a drink after
Speaker 1: filming Good for You, dr Willis, while only two of
Speaker 1: the Marvin the Martian women accepted his invitation. Moreover, when
Speaker 1: they filled out a survey and they used um language.
Speaker 1: The women on the roller coaster that was much more
Speaker 1: sexually charged and Marvin the Martian. Now that's not to
Speaker 1: say that there are not some potential holes in this article.
Speaker 1: It's been brought up by critics over the years that
Speaker 1: that some of this doesn't hold up as well when
Speaker 1: you reverse the genders, when you start trying to replicate
Speaker 1: the exact results. Uh. In particular, we're looking at an
Speaker 1: article titled attraction at first Sight What data and Aaron
Speaker 1: really demonstrated almost forty years ago. A two thousand twelve
Speaker 1: article by Katazan Suzuka, and she pointed out that some
Speaker 1: of the funds have done in arab um created in
Speaker 1: subsequent experiments could not be replicated by both a nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy nine study by Kendrick, Kale, Danny and Linder and
Speaker 1: a ninety three study by Reardon and Tatsishi. That's right,
Speaker 1: and so that's when when we talk about studies and
Speaker 1: we talk about experiments, UM, it's always helpful to know
Speaker 1: the context of it and to know whether or not
Speaker 1: the data could be duplicated. And so in this sense,
Speaker 1: it really does kind of cast a little bit of
Speaker 1: doubt over what was going on here. Also, you have
Speaker 1: to wonder about the person um who was participating. Was
Speaker 1: that person a neophiliac, a type T personality who was
Speaker 1: open to more experiences? Would that person be more apt
Speaker 1: to try to pursue some sort of relationship or dating opening, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean you could even get into cultural differences. That
Speaker 1: first study was its Canadian So does that end up
Speaker 1: playing a role in subsequent studies They're not, Uh, that
Speaker 1: don't don't involve Canadians or their cultural differences that play
Speaker 1: a role. And it also in terms of applying that
Speaker 1: study to this uh, people on a date at a
Speaker 1: movie theater scenario. Um, you have the added complexity of
Speaker 1: the individuals on the date are going to be stimulated
Speaker 1: and aroused by what they're watching, but they're also potentially
Speaker 1: going to be stimulated by each other. I mean, they're
Speaker 1: they're on a date, so they're they're thinking about this
Speaker 1: other person. They're looking at that other person. They're conceivably
Speaker 1: feeling some level of physical arousal just by being in
Speaker 1: their company. So you're having these two competing uh sets
Speaker 1: of stimuli. Well, maybe not competing, but complimentary, which is
Speaker 1: really interesting when you stop to consider one study that
Speaker 1: had to do with products kind of hitching a ride
Speaker 1: on those feelings. Oh yes, this one's great because what
Speaker 1: do you do when you're at the movie theater. You're
Speaker 1: seeing this horror movie and you don't have this other
Speaker 1: person to to jump into the arms of, Right, you
Speaker 1: cling to whatever you're drinking or you're eating as a
Speaker 1: source of comfort. Yeah, and you go for the brand. Right,
Speaker 1: you don't go for TWI, you don't go for Red Vine,
Speaker 1: you go for twists. You go for the You go
Speaker 1: for the good stuff, the strong stuff, the stuff you
Speaker 1: care about. The brand you can trust for all plastic candies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't go for it. Was that hydroxy versus oreos.
Speaker 1: That that one always troubled me. Just the name hydrox
Speaker 1: sounds like the version of oreos that Walter White cooks
Speaker 1: up in his lab beneath the chicken plant. Right, never
Speaker 1: eat anything that Walter White makes. That's just a rule
Speaker 1: in life. There's a two thousand and four study in
Speaker 1: the Journal of Consumer Research that looks at this idea
Speaker 1: that that when you don't have person to person support
Speaker 1: when you're experiencing something that's scary, that you will replace
Speaker 1: that person um with something else, like a actual physical object.
Speaker 1: So they had a couple of studies, but in one
Speaker 1: they had one in which participants were asked to drink
Speaker 1: the juice or this kind of juice during a movie
Speaker 1: and they were asked to wait or given a choice
Speaker 1: to drink at leisure. Now their choices were horror action
Speaker 1: or a documentary. And the study results showed that the
Speaker 1: most increase in emotional attachment to the juice and participants
Speaker 1: who viewed the horror movie and who were allowed to
Speaker 1: drink at leisure or asked to wait until the end
Speaker 1: of the movie, So again we see some sort of
Speaker 1: emotional connection to that, which I have to say, I
Speaker 1: don't know if you've ever done this when you watched
Speaker 1: something that, you know, a movie that was scary or
Speaker 1: just ramped up your sense of anticipation, um, and you
Speaker 1: just kept going for the popcorn over and over again, because,
Speaker 1: as we've talked about before, food is a source of comfort. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then when you're in the popcorn, of course, you're
Speaker 1: you're you're eating it and it's getting the salty, the sweet,
Speaker 1: the fat. I mean, it's it's it's in itself kind
Speaker 1: of a super normal stimuli as well. But but yeah,
Speaker 1: I've certainly had that experience where you're watching the film
Speaker 1: and you just can't stop eating the popcorn. Now, this
Speaker 1: study was conducted because there's this idea that you could
Speaker 1: have negative associations with brands and then you would turn
Speaker 1: away from them. At least this is what a lot
Speaker 1: of industries like coke and and other manufacturers of snack
Speaker 1: food thought, and so this experiment was interesting because it
Speaker 1: kind of turns that paradigm on its head and if
Speaker 1: you're interested in learning more about it. The studies called
Speaker 1: the Impact of Fear on emotional brand attachment. It was
Speaker 1: published in the June fourteen edition of Journal of Consumer Research.
Speaker 1: I feel like I can I can definitely relate to
Speaker 1: that because just Monday evening I watched the nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: nine horror film Tourist Trap and if your film dunkies.
Speaker 1: It starred Chuck Conners, you know, the rifleman from the
Speaker 1: old TV shows, as this kind of like psychic hillbilly
Speaker 1: mannequin obsessed. It was kind of a it was did
Speaker 1: you say mannequin? Oh, yeah, it's it has creepy mannequins
Speaker 1: in it and psychic abilities and uh and in fear
Speaker 1: of of rural folk and old versus their whole true detective. No,
Speaker 1: it's it's not so elegantly crafty. It's it's not a
Speaker 1: good movie, but but there's but it has some flip
Speaker 1: scenes that are legitimately creepy, and it has a say
Speaker 1: where there's a Dr Pepper machine in the background while
Speaker 1: our lone survivor girl tries to figure out what she's
Speaker 1: gonna do, and it's just, you know, she's terrified and
Speaker 1: she's standing around and there's a Dr Pepper logo. And
Speaker 1: at the time I was just kind of like, oh,
Speaker 1: what's that's kind of weird that Dr Pepper machines there.
Speaker 1: I wonder what they thought about it, if they, if
Speaker 1: anyone in the corporate level ever knew that their logo
Speaker 1: showed up in this film. But even even still thinking
Speaker 1: back on it, uh, the other evening, I started thinking
Speaker 1: about Dr Pepper. I started thinking about how it takes
Speaker 1: and even though I haven't haven't consumed a Dr Pepper
Speaker 1: in years and years and years, I did kind of
Speaker 1: want one in that moment. Did you know what goes
Speaker 1: with it? Really? Well, what's that? I kid you not,
Speaker 1: My sixteen year old self will tell you that that's
Speaker 1: a beautiful flavor combination. Okay, well, well I'll have to
Speaker 1: keep that in mind for next time for sure. Okay.
Speaker 1: We talked about these things, and then often we try
Speaker 1: to find examples in nature, and lo and behold, we
Speaker 1: did find an example of perhaps the scary movie effect
Speaker 1: with us trailing birds. Yes, particularly we're talking about uh
Speaker 1: the splendid fairy wrens, which sounds pretty uh fantastic, but
Speaker 1: this is an actual thing. Particularly the male splendid fairy
Speaker 1: wrens um alright, sexually promiscuous, small bird, and they are
Speaker 1: known to kind of peggyback onto the calls of predatory
Speaker 1: birds such as butcher browder birds. So the butcher bird
Speaker 1: lets out its predatory cry, and in any any potential
Speaker 1: prey in the area are instantly going to go, you know,
Speaker 1: And that's that's a bad sign. That's the sound of
Speaker 1: something that could potentially kill me. That is a scary
Speaker 1: bird call. What is the male ferrier ndo He packs
Speaker 1: on his own little uh love cry onto the end
Speaker 1: of the predator's cry. Yeah, And it's in fact, he
Speaker 1: does it so quickly that it is sometimes considered a duet.
Speaker 1: At least vocally it sounds like that, and this is
Speaker 1: called vocal hitch hiking. And by the way, I love
Speaker 1: the fact that this predator bird is called a butcher bird.
Speaker 1: And I can't help but think you might build a
Speaker 1: butcher with this glorious mustache. So so that's what I
Speaker 1: think of flying around out there. Well, if it's perfectly right,
Speaker 1: there's a butcher. There's a horrible killer in our midst
Speaker 1: and it's calling out to us, it's shrieking. And then
Speaker 1: here is the male of this species, the splendid fairy,
Speaker 1: splendid fairy wren saying hey ladies, Hey ladie, what's going on?
Speaker 1: And it is specifically, it's called a type to call
Speaker 1: that the splendid fairy wren makes, which is specifically a
Speaker 1: mating call, and that's really important. Um. And they were
Speaker 1: out in the field. They did tons of painstaking research
Speaker 1: on this to figure this out. So essentially what they're
Speaker 1: doing at the very basis here is trying to get
Speaker 1: the female's attention, and that is much easier done if
Speaker 1: it is preceded by this terrifying predator out there. Indeed,
Speaker 1: it's almost sending that message. Life is horrible, life is
Speaker 1: full of dangers. You could die, don't when you like
Speaker 1: to have a little comfort, wouldn't you like to have
Speaker 1: a chance, maybe even to fulfill your genetic mission on
Speaker 1: this planet before you wind up in the belly of
Speaker 1: a butcher bird. That's right, there's no time like the
Speaker 1: president to get it on, ladies. I think that's what
Speaker 1: they're saying. Now. Less you think that these male birds
Speaker 1: are competing for a Darwin Award out there in nature, Um,
Speaker 1: it turns out that this singing after a predator call
Speaker 1: may actually be really safe. Male fairy wrens know where
Speaker 1: the predators located first of all, and he also knows
Speaker 1: that the predator isn't actively hunting at that moment, but
Speaker 1: is instead seeing it's hard out as if it were
Speaker 1: in the shower. Oh man, See this makes me think
Speaker 1: of a perfect pitch for for a horror movie. You
Speaker 1: have your basic slasher scenario, right, He's a slasher killer,
Speaker 1: and he you know, he pops up, you know periodically,
Speaker 1: it's some you know late camp or you know, similar haunts.
Speaker 1: But then you also have uh, males, male humans that
Speaker 1: are essentially like our splendid fairy wren who realized, hey,
Speaker 1: if they have a shot at the ladies, they had
Speaker 1: best go hang out in regions where the slasher killer
Speaker 1: uh happens to to frequent. I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean that's that's it's an idea here. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: would be a nice reveal because because again, we love
Speaker 1: the horror movies where all the men are horrible, So
Speaker 1: there would be that reveal. We realize the male characters
Speaker 1: who seem like they're trying to help our female, they're
Speaker 1: basically just looking to score and they're they've they've they're
Speaker 1: using the presence of the Flasher Killer to their advantage
Speaker 1: cats all of you. All right, Um, this is the
Speaker 1: single kids that they've found so far in nature. But
Speaker 1: the researchers um, and this is headed up by Emma
Speaker 1: Greig and she's a PhD. And she's one of the
Speaker 1: first authors of the study. They suspect that there are
Speaker 1: more cases like this out in nature. They just have
Speaker 1: to find them. And if you're interested, the study is
Speaker 1: called Danger may Enhance Communication Predator calls alert females to
Speaker 1: male displays. Alright, so there you have it. Now, based
Speaker 1: on everything we've we've told you here, I feel like
Speaker 1: this would be a good time for us to give
Speaker 1: you some some recommendations. If you're looking for a manipulative
Speaker 1: dating movie experience, you want something you want to watch,
Speaker 1: some horror that would perhaps have some romantic results, though
Speaker 1: we by no means guarantee results. Yeah, if you want
Speaker 1: to try to scare the pants literally off of your date, uh,
Speaker 1: no matter whether gender. Okay, my picks love actually what
Speaker 1: the notebook? What on Golden Pond chilling? They're those are
Speaker 1: not horror movies, Julie, I've seen none of them. No,
Speaker 1: I take that back, I have seen love actually and
Speaker 1: it was a horrifying experience. Yeah, so that's your Rationaley,
Speaker 1: this will this will frighten people into gene fond It
Speaker 1: is just terrifying. She is She's an excellent actor, great
Speaker 1: in Barbarrella, but terrifying in on Golden Pond. That's all
Speaker 1: I'm saying. Okay, Well, my recommendations um would be High
Speaker 1: Tension two thousand three horror film from Alexandra Aja. And
Speaker 1: this one is interesting. It has it has a twist
Speaker 1: that doesn't quite hold up to repeat viewings, but stylish,
Speaker 1: really well done, and it plays with gender expectations in
Speaker 1: kind of a unique way. And another film that came
Speaker 1: to mind, and this was based on the fact that
Speaker 1: in Sereno Whitney's article for Killer Film, she mentioned that
Speaker 1: that it that at times like a horror movie can
Speaker 1: be almost like going to a funeral, so after which
Speaker 1: you're so disturbed that you you kind of have to
Speaker 1: cling to other, to to another person, like you need
Speaker 1: real human contact. You almost have to mourn for what
Speaker 1: has happened. Um which would probably indicate either a really
Speaker 1: good or really bad movie watching experience. So um Oculus
Speaker 1: comes to mind. Two film about a haunted mirror from
Speaker 1: Mike Flanagan. Uh. Not everybody loved it. I thought it
Speaker 1: was really well crafted. I thought I did some wonderful
Speaker 1: stuff with with the way Maria works and uh in
Speaker 1: taking the past and the president mixing them together. But
Speaker 1: it ultimately leaves you in such a devastated place because
Speaker 1: you care about the characters and all of these these
Speaker 1: horror movie events happen, and and at the end you
Speaker 1: kind of needs somebody to hold. Indeed, I do stand
Speaker 1: by the beast. I gotta say the seventies French one, Um,
Speaker 1: it's campy. And if anybody goes out and they see
Speaker 1: it on my recommendation, I apologize in advance for the
Speaker 1: beast penis that I have to say. So warning may
Speaker 1: contain beast penis. Yeah, exactly all right. As always, you
Speaker 1: can find this and all the other podcast episodes on
Speaker 1: our homepage Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com, and
Speaker 1: I'll try to include links to related contents on that
Speaker 1: landing page for this episode, as well as some outgoing
Speaker 1: links to some of these resources that Julie made mention off.
Speaker 1: Also on the website, you can find all of our videos,
Speaker 1: are blog posts, and links out to our various social
Speaker 1: media accounts all right, and if you have any thoughts
Speaker 1: brewing about this, if you think this is just some
Speaker 1: sort of hetero noi orm who we a relic of
Speaker 1: the past, or if you think there's a basis to it,
Speaker 1: let us know. You can do that by emailing us
Speaker 1: at below the mind at how staff works dot com
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics. Does
Speaker 1: it how staff works dot com