Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. Listener mail.
Speaker 3: My name is Robert and I am Joe McCormick, and
Speaker 3: it's Monday, the day of each week that we read
Speaker 3: back messages from the Stuff to Blow your Mind mail bag.
Speaker 3: If you've never gotten in touch before and you want
Speaker 3: to give it a try, you can email us at
Speaker 3: contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Whatever
Speaker 3: you want to send us fair game. But we especially
Speaker 3: like if you want to respond to a topic we've
Speaker 3: talked about on the show recently and add something interesting
Speaker 3: of your own. Let's see, rob We've got a bunch
Speaker 3: of messages in response to our invention series on crossbows.
Speaker 3: I think I'm going to kick things off with this
Speaker 3: message from Ahmed If that's cool with.
Speaker 2: You, Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 3: Ahmed, who has written many great emails to us in
Speaker 3: the past. By the way, Ahmed says, hey guys, I'm
Speaker 3: ed again here. I loved your recent episodes on the crossbow,
Speaker 3: especially the discussions of its association with evil that seems
Speaker 3: sort of unfair and out of proportion with the technology
Speaker 3: itself and as a refresher on the side. This is
Speaker 3: from the episode where we talked about how if you
Speaker 3: watch movies from the modern period where some kind of
Speaker 3: medieval fantasy is depicted or there's a medieval technology context,
Speaker 3: the crossbows are always used by the bad guys, almost
Speaker 3: always exclusively a villain weapon, and how this wasn't a
Speaker 3: It hasn't always exactly been seen like this, but there
Speaker 3: are threads of that going back to the medieval period itself.
Speaker 3: There are some writings from the period that characterize the
Speaker 3: crossbow as a uniquely wicked or barbaric weapon, and we
Speaker 3: were wondering, like, why that, why the crossbow compared to
Speaker 3: any other weapon. Ahmed's message continues. One important example in
Speaker 3: literature that came to mind for me was the Rhyme
Speaker 3: of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Coleridge. For those not acquainted,
Speaker 3: this is a Romantic Movement English poem that tells a
Speaker 3: story within a story of a sailor who shoots an
Speaker 3: albatross with a crossbow and is cursed for it before
Speaker 3: ultimate redemption. It's had a big culture impact, with famous
Speaker 3: imagery like an albatross hanging around someone's neck and lines
Speaker 3: like water water everywhere, nor any drop to drink. I
Speaker 3: always thought it weird that this poem, published in seventeen
Speaker 3: ninety eight, so centuries into the gunpowder age, had the
Speaker 3: crossbow as the weapon the unnamed narrator uses to shoot
Speaker 3: the albatross. After listening to your episodes, this seems to
Speaker 3: fit into a broader cultural association of the crossbow with
Speaker 3: evil and wickedness, and in this case, a wicked act,
Speaker 3: as the poem itself says. Quote by him who died
Speaker 3: on cross with his cruel bow, he laid full low
Speaker 3: the harmless albatross, Ahmed goes on. I wonder if part
Speaker 3: of this association comes from the fact that the crossbow
Speaker 3: made it easy for the first time to accidentally or
Speaker 3: unthinkingly kill or hurt someone. After all, the energy is
Speaker 3: already stored up, and all it would take is an
Speaker 3: accidental or impulsive pulling of the trigger. Besides dropping something
Speaker 3: on somebody from high up. This was probably the first
Speaker 3: time a regular person without a catapult or ballista could
Speaker 3: get a ton of kinetic energy into something all of
Speaker 3: a sudden without much work. You certainly get the idea
Speaker 3: that the mariner shoots the bird on a whim and
Speaker 3: I wonder if countless such unsung instances or half baked
Speaker 3: or accidental maiming and killing with crossbows were the reason
Speaker 3: for its bad rap that stuck around even centuries after
Speaker 3: gunpowder made even higher energies deployable with the push of
Speaker 3: a trigger. I couldn't find any actual scholarship on this,
Speaker 3: but the speculation was too juicy not to share. Anyways,
Speaker 3: keep up the great work and happy Thanksgiving, Ahmed uh
Speaker 3: on it. Yeah, I don't know if that had occurred
Speaker 3: to me. I don't think it had. And that's a
Speaker 3: really interesting idea that the crossbow makes it easier to
Speaker 3: do to cause a lot of harm accidentally or with
Speaker 3: very little immediate physical effort. I mean, it does take
Speaker 3: physical effort to cock it back, but that's something you
Speaker 3: can do in advance, and you know, the release of
Speaker 3: the mechanism to to unleash the violence is quite simple.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I think it's a great point on top
Speaker 2: of the fact that just like the basic technological metaphor
Speaker 2: is so irresistible, you know, and we touched on that
Speaker 2: a little bit Louis. It's referenced in sun Zoo and
Speaker 2: so forth. But yeah, here is this this lethal the
Speaker 2: lethal force has already even applied, and then it may
Speaker 2: be the device may be set aside, and virtually anyone
Speaker 2: could then pick it up and fire it or misfire it,
Speaker 2: or whatever the case may be, and and could commit
Speaker 2: heinous crimes with it, such as in the case of
Speaker 2: the rhyme of the ancient marrin are shooting that blessed
Speaker 2: albatross out of the sky exactly.
Speaker 3: So thanks for the email, Ahmed, I think that is
Speaker 3: a really interesting idea. Okay, Now, we invited listeners to
Speaker 3: chime in on a couple of topics related to crossbows
Speaker 3: in Dungeons and Dragons and rob There are several emails
Speaker 3: of this genre that you might need to help explicate
Speaker 3: and interpret for those not as deeply familiar with the game.
Speaker 3: Do you want to do?
Speaker 1: This?
Speaker 3: One from Emily Sure.
Speaker 2: Emily writes it and says, Hi, guys, I'm listening to
Speaker 2: your episode about crossbows and wanted to chime in since
Speaker 2: you asked for comments relating to crossbows in tabletop RPGs.
Speaker 2: A few years ago, I DMed a game of Pathfinder,
Speaker 2: playing a published adventure path called Second Darkness. Mild spoilers
Speaker 2: follow for this fifteen year old AP. The central plot
Speaker 2: revolves around the Drow rhymes with brow not crow, okay
Speaker 2: for anyone out there, or dark Elves, which at the
Speaker 2: time the AP was written, were an explicitly and exclusively
Speaker 2: evil race. Yeah, this is true. Nowadays in Duns and Dragons,
Speaker 2: you're finding a lot more needed nuance with specific races
Speaker 2: or species. So I think there were exceptions to the
Speaker 2: rule in the Older Lord, but nowadays it's less a
Speaker 2: matter of like, oh, yeah, the Drow are all evil,
Speaker 2: They're all awful evil. Now we're opening it up and
Speaker 2: realizing you, no, no, it's okay that some of the
Speaker 2: Drow are evil and some are not evil. It's like
Speaker 2: they're just like people, right, And I think that's a
Speaker 2: much healthier place to land everything. Anyway, Emily continues. I
Speaker 2: believe the recently released second edition of Pathfinder has been
Speaker 2: updated such that this is no longer the case, but
Speaker 2: I'm not sure. The big twist of second Darkness in
Speaker 2: Universe is that normal elves turn into Drow if they
Speaker 2: are sufficiently wicked. There's an important scene where this happens
Speaker 2: to an NPC picture below for your amusement. Kicking off
Speaker 2: the back half of the adventure rob.
Speaker 3: Maybe we should go ahead and look down to this
Speaker 3: ps of this character, who is I don't even know
Speaker 3: how to begin to describe this a V neck shirt
Speaker 3: so deep it goes down to his belly button, and
Speaker 3: he's got like about six swords hanging off of his belt.
Speaker 3: And yeah, he looks like he's no good.
Speaker 2: He looks like he should be fronting a really ridiculous
Speaker 2: I don't know, in late eighties, early nineties kind of
Speaker 2: satanic heavy metal band, I'm not sure, a little bit
Speaker 2: glam rock.
Speaker 3: In there, Yeah, like the kind of bands that have
Speaker 3: song titles that translate to I dislike Christians.
Speaker 2: Also, the Drow and this image has pale skin, which,
Speaker 2: of course in dungeons and dragons they're generally depicted as
Speaker 2: having a dark skin, which of course plays into some
Speaker 2: of the problematic aspects of having the Drow the evil.
Speaker 2: And then also always threw me for a curve because
Speaker 2: it's like, Okay, there's subterranean creatures. Shouldn't they be pale?
Speaker 2: Like subterranean creatures, shouldn'y have like translucent skin or something?
Speaker 2: But clearly I am and was overthinking that that aspect
Speaker 2: of the scenario.
Speaker 3: Oh, and we should say Emily has a ps regarding
Speaker 3: this image. It reads who in the world would have
Speaker 3: suspected this guy of being evil? He has so many swords, Yeah,
Speaker 3: like six swords. Going back to in the same discussion
Speaker 3: we talked about, for some reason, in movies the sword
Speaker 3: is identified as like an honest and virtuous weapon, which
Speaker 3: is pretty equally silly to the crossbow being more evil
Speaker 3: than other weapons.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right. Anyways, she continues on to I guess
Speaker 2: the main point here, given your discussion in the second
Speaker 2: episode about crossbows being evil coded weaponry in fiction, it
Speaker 2: should come as no surprise that every single Drow the
Speaker 2: PC's encountered was packing a master work hand crossbow as
Speaker 2: part of their load out, even the castlers and folks
Speaker 2: with other weapons, including swords. I suppose it makes sense
Speaker 2: for the Drow to favor the crossbow for the same
Speaker 2: reason Rob said dwarfs would favor them, good for low light,
Speaker 2: close quarters underground combat. Also, for the record, according to
Speaker 2: d twenty pfsrd dot com, an online pathfinder reference document,
Speaker 2: loading a hand crossbow is technically a move action that
Speaker 2: provokes attacks of opportunity. Why they have conveniently forgotten this
Speaker 2: while I was running the ap but my players still
Speaker 2: manage to defeat the Drow and avert the titular second
Speaker 2: darkness all the same.
Speaker 3: Oh wait, so in your campaign the Drow we're getting
Speaker 3: double the amount of attacks they should have.
Speaker 2: No, if I'm understanding what she's saying correctly, it's like
Speaker 2: by engaging in reloading of the crossbow, you would be
Speaker 2: provoking an attack of opportunity, meaning that the enemy would
Speaker 2: get to make like an out of turn attack on me.
Speaker 2: Unless I'm misunderstanding something. But anyway, again, that sounds like
Speaker 2: one of those rules that suddenly makes using a crossbow
Speaker 2: in the game less fun, and maybe isn't a great rule,
Speaker 2: but that's just me.
Speaker 3: I think we got another email this coming up.
Speaker 2: Okay. Emily closes with this was a really interesting series
Speaker 2: of episodes. I liked Invention a lot when it was
Speaker 2: its own separate thing, and it's been a while since
Speaker 2: you guys have done a proper Invention episode, so this
Speaker 2: was a pleasant surprise to see when I opened my
Speaker 2: podcast app this week. Thank you as always for the
Speaker 2: excellent podcast.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you, Emily.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I enjoyed dipping back into the Invention content from
Speaker 2: time to time. You know, a splash of something different
Speaker 2: from time to time, so we'll definitely keep doing it.
Speaker 3: Okay, here's more about crossbows and fictional worlds. Andrew says, Howdy,
Speaker 3: regarding your recent crossbow episode, you failed to mention Chewy's
Speaker 3: crossbow from Star Wars. I've always been confused on the
Speaker 3: physics of a laser crossbow. Did he have to reload it?
Speaker 3: How is a laser propelled forward with stored energy in
Speaker 3: the way? The traditional one is how is his weapon
Speaker 3: any different from any other Star Wars blaster? Thanks Andrew, Andrew,
Speaker 3: I have the same question growing up. I had no idea.
Speaker 3: Why would you need a blaster to be a crossbow blaster?
Speaker 3: I don't know what advantage it provides.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it never made sense to me either.
Speaker 2: I'm sure it has been explained. Someone in the Star
Speaker 2: Wars fan world has explained this. I just haven't looked
Speaker 2: it up, but I guess I always tended to lean
Speaker 2: towards two possible sort of headcanon explanations. One, it's not
Speaker 2: really a crossbow. It doesn't have a string. Maybe it
Speaker 2: does have a string, but in my mind I just
Speaker 2: remember it has the like the bow shape, and then
Speaker 2: they are like these balls on the end. So maybe
Speaker 2: those are for some sort of like electromagnetic rail gun scenario.
Speaker 2: I don't know, so something other than aiding in the
Speaker 2: drawing back of a bow, or is there is a
Speaker 2: string there and it's not so much about propelling something
Speaker 2: but as facilitating some sort of a fast function mechanical
Speaker 2: aspect of the device that plays into its launching of
Speaker 2: a laser boult.
Speaker 3: Or what have you.
Speaker 2: I'll have to go on Wikipedia to find out.
Speaker 3: Wikipedia. Yeah, I think there's gonna have to be your answer,
Speaker 3: but it never made sense to me either.
Speaker 2: All Right, Well, I'm just gonna go and read from Wikipedia.
Speaker 2: Here's what that Wikipedia says. Okay, quote the weapon used
Speaker 2: metal quarrels developed with plasma energy as ammunition. Two polarizing
Speaker 2: orbs placed on each end of the bow, creating a
Speaker 2: magnetic field that boosted the corals momentum. Once the cocking
Speaker 2: spring was pulled back, the trigger fired the coral, which
Speaker 2: was enveloped in plasma energy. So if I'm understanding that correctly,
Speaker 2: it's still kind of a traditional crossbow, but with some
Speaker 2: sci fi stuff.
Speaker 3: It's shooting bolts, like hard metal bolts that are surrounded
Speaker 3: by plasma energy. Like it's like a metal bolt with
Speaker 3: a blaster casing. It's like an eminem h that's kind
Speaker 3: of vicious, Like I can only imagine that blasting through
Speaker 3: your stormtrooper armor.
Speaker 2: All right, what else do we have?
Speaker 3: Let's see, well we got we got another one from
Speaker 3: Matthew about tabletop RPG rules with crossbows. Do you want
Speaker 3: to do this one around?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, yeah, sure, Matthew says, good morning. I just
Speaker 2: caught up with the two part an crossbows, and I
Speaker 2: have to admit I was stumped for a moment because
Speaker 2: I thought i'd seen statistics for the repeating crossbow in
Speaker 2: the wild. Instead, what I remembered was the esthetic choice
Speaker 2: Wizards meaning Wizards of the Coast made when they went
Speaker 2: MMO on fourth edition and purged a lot of the
Speaker 2: three point five materials to make it play more like
Speaker 2: a video game. However, I did see the pathfinder blocks
Speaker 2: from the original version aka D and D three point
Speaker 2: seventy five, so I'm sure with a little conversion and whatnot,
Speaker 2: it can apply to the game since it still had
Speaker 2: roots in the three point five edition.
Speaker 3: Okay, so this is a response to you saying you
Speaker 3: thought that there were repeating crossbows somewhere in the D
Speaker 3: and D universe at some point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think in five E some enemies have them.
Speaker 2: But and it just and also it just makes sense
Speaker 2: that certainly someone's home brewed it, and it may be
Speaker 2: in a book that I just haven't seen. Anyway, Matthew
Speaker 2: serves a link with us and says, of course, I
Speaker 2: remember the two E versions having some more realistic rules
Speaker 2: on maintenance and upkeep, which made sure it was never
Speaker 2: used around the table. Kids these days and they're plug
Speaker 2: and play D and D. Thanks for everything, Nephew.
Speaker 3: You know, making things in a game more like real
Speaker 3: life is not always an improvement. I don't know if
Speaker 3: Matthew would disagree with me there, but like, yeah, you
Speaker 3: have to use a turn to like load your crossbow.
Speaker 3: Is that as much fun? I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, there has to be a balance there, but
Speaker 2: I guess it's just always a struggle to figure out
Speaker 2: what the balance is. Because a certain amount of pdium
Speaker 2: in a game can be fun. I mean, there doesn't
Speaker 2: need it doesn't need to be too much like a
Speaker 2: video game, but you don't want it to be so
Speaker 2: complex that you know, only rocket scientists can play it
Speaker 2: part of the struggle.
Speaker 3: All right. This next message is from Heraldo and it
Speaker 3: goes back to our episodes called from Before You Could Remember,
Speaker 3: our episodes about infant amnesia. Basically, Heraldo says, Hello, Robert
Speaker 3: and Joe, hope you're well. I live in Brazil and
Speaker 3: I've been a regular listener to the Stuff to Blow
Speaker 3: Your Mind podcast since twenty seventeen to twenty eighteen. Actually,
Speaker 3: I try to keep up with every episode in sequence
Speaker 3: and with the daily routine. I am currently still listening
Speaker 3: to episodes from April. Yesterday, I finished the third part
Speaker 3: of the Before You Could Remember series, and I think
Speaker 3: I have something to share about it. You referred to
Speaker 3: a proposal which states that quote, it's not until we
Speaker 3: have mastered the concept of a self different from others
Speaker 3: that we're able to organize our memories into a sensical
Speaker 3: form that can be retrieved across time. That idea immediately
Speaker 3: reminded me of a common phrase that I've listened since
Speaker 3: my childhood from my parents and other older members of
Speaker 3: my family, and which I've incorporated in my own verbal expressions.
Speaker 3: They used to say something like and I guess this
Speaker 3: is in Spanish or Portuguese, so I apologize if I'm
Speaker 3: not saying this right, say disso des de qu au
Speaker 3: maintendo poorhente, which could be translated as I've known this
Speaker 3: since I've known myself as a person, as a way
Speaker 3: to say that the point when you identify yourself as
Speaker 3: a person is as far as your memory can reach backwards.
Speaker 3: I'm not a native English speaker, as you have probably
Speaker 3: already noticed, so I can't say if there is a
Speaker 3: correlate expression in English. Anyway, I find it really interesting
Speaker 3: that such an idea is concealed in rather daily expression,
Speaker 3: and I thought it would be a shaable thing. Thank
Speaker 3: you for the delightful hours listening to the ever interesting
Speaker 3: and thought provoking subjects that you bring weekly to our appreciation.
Speaker 3: Please doing this brilliant work you do. Best regards, Heraldo. Oh,
Speaker 3: thank you so much, Heraldo. I did not know that expression,
Speaker 3: and yeah, that is interesting. Yeah, I wonder where something
Speaker 3: like that would come from since I've known myself as
Speaker 3: a person, But.
Speaker 2: It makes sense. It makes sense within the context of
Speaker 2: what we were talking about. I like it, all right,
Speaker 2: Shall we dive into some weird house cinema listener mail?
Speaker 3: Sure?
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Kick this off with whichever of these you want
Speaker 3: to read, Rob.
Speaker 2: All right, This one comes to us from Adam. Adam
Speaker 2: says after listening to the most recent Weird House episode,
Speaker 2: The Butterfly Murders and watching, I found the look of
Speaker 2: the leader of the ten Flags ten thing reminded me
Speaker 2: of the main character in the graphic novel Fin Shing
Speaker 2: g wou Jing, though it's mostly the hair and cloak.
Speaker 2: I haven't thought about Fein Shinji in years, but recall
Speaker 2: really enjoying it. It's said in a mythical world, thematically
Speaker 2: reminiscent of ancient China, where people and god's are fighting
Speaker 2: for supremacy. It's gorgeously illustrated and a fun read. I
Speaker 2: got hooked on Joe's recommendation and asterix by this will
Speaker 2: come back to this kill six billion demons years back,
Speaker 2: and thought I would return the favor. I enjoyed the
Speaker 2: main show quite a bit, but Weird House definitely quote
Speaker 2: unquote rubs the fur and I am always excited to
Speaker 2: hear what film will be discussed next. Thanks for your
Speaker 2: hard work, best Adam.
Speaker 3: Now I think I know what your asterisk is, Rob.
Speaker 3: I don't personally recall recommending kill six billion demons. That's
Speaker 3: not anything against it. I'm just not really familiar with this,
Speaker 3: So was that you or maybe Christian years ago?
Speaker 2: I honestly don't remember. I know that I had a
Speaker 2: copy of it of one of the books of it
Speaker 2: and really loved the artwork and ended up passing it
Speaker 2: on to a friend, but I cannot recall if it's
Speaker 2: something that I learned about through someone else, or if
Speaker 2: Christian recommended it and I picked it up because Christian
Speaker 2: liked it. But at any rate, I recommend checking it out.
Speaker 2: It's pretty fun. As for this series that Adam is recommending,
Speaker 2: I'll have to check it out. I'm really not familiar
Speaker 2: with it, but it sounds intriguing.
Speaker 3: I mean, if the main character is like Bosston Funngro
Speaker 3: from Butterfly Murders, that's already in the plus column for me. Yeah,
Speaker 3: all right. This next message comes from Alan. Alan says,
Speaker 3: I've been catching up on past podcasts that I missed,
Speaker 3: and just listen to the Weird House episode about the
Speaker 3: movie Conquest. This is the Luccio Fulci Sword and Sorcery movies,
Speaker 3: kind of a Conan ripoff, starring the guy from Werewolf.
Speaker 3: The bad guy from Werewolf as a conan type guy.
Speaker 3: I recall this movie having some well speaking of were wolves,
Speaker 3: doesn't have to like some wolf men that serve a
Speaker 3: sorceress and oh yeah yeah, and I recall a lot
Speaker 3: of good stuff. But it's been a while. Oh I
Speaker 3: remember this is one where they like, they like journey
Speaker 3: through a poison swamp that just ends up with Folci
Speaker 3: giving us like a three minute close up of the
Speaker 3: heroes Pustula wounds.
Speaker 2: Yes, it is, I can say, without a shred of irony,
Speaker 2: is a great movie. I absolutely love Conquest. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: love it more every time that I watch it that
Speaker 2: I'll have more to say on this in a second
Speaker 2: once the email is finished.
Speaker 3: Well, so Alan says. After listening, I immediately watched the movie.
Speaker 3: It sounded intriguing and visually I was not disappointed. Otherwise,
Speaker 3: I still haven't decided if I liked it or not. However,
Speaker 3: that did want to share a moment from the movie
Speaker 3: that made me laugh out loud. At the end, the
Speaker 3: wolves run to the forest, the hero walks to the shore,
Speaker 3: both somehow into the sunset. Good observation, and the credits
Speaker 3: start to roll. The first thing you read is quote,
Speaker 3: any reference to persons or events is purely coincidental. Alan says, huh,
Speaker 3: I realized this could be something the studio just does
Speaker 3: regardless of the movie. But the idea of someone making
Speaker 3: the decision to add that disclaimer after making that movie
Speaker 3: is hilarious. Maybe they added it ironically, which I can appreciate,
Speaker 3: but it's more amusing to imagine a group of people
Speaker 3: sitting around a table agreeing that, you know, boys, we
Speaker 3: cut this one pretty close to reality, and we better
Speaker 3: cover our butts so nobody thinks the movie was about them.
Speaker 3: That's all. Keep up the great work. Happy holidays, Alan,
Speaker 3: Thank you Alan.
Speaker 2: Well. Now on the comment about not being sure if
Speaker 2: you liked it or not after watching it, as someone
Speaker 2: who loves Conquest, I will say this is the correct
Speaker 2: response to the first viewing of Conquest. It takes a
Speaker 2: while to figure out how you feel about it and
Speaker 2: to grow in your relationship with this particular film. But yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a bonker's one, especially bonkers, so the idea of
Speaker 2: anything in this movie matching up closely with reality is
Speaker 2: a bit ludicrous.
Speaker 3: Imagine someone suing Fulchy for the way they were depicted
Speaker 3: in Conquest.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this Yea. It's like you've totally stole my life story.
Speaker 2: I a topless, gold headed, uh sorceress with an army
Speaker 2: of were wolves, and uh, you're you're using my story
Speaker 2: without without my permission, without giving me a cut of
Speaker 2: the pot.
Speaker 3: How could they? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I probably need to revisit some other full Chie films.
Speaker 2: At some point. We may do another full Chy film
Speaker 2: on Weird House. But uh, I have to say it's
Speaker 2: my favorite right now. It's Uh, it's it's my It's
Speaker 2: my favorite ful Chief film without a doubt. That's that's
Speaker 2: where I stand at the moment. They're not all they're
Speaker 2: not all winners. There's there's some real dogs in that filmography.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: You know, he made a lot of films. This one, though,
Speaker 2: I think, is something special to say.
Speaker 3: The thing about putting together all the full Chi movies
Speaker 3: I've seen, they're all gross, and so the question is
Speaker 3: are they gross and also brilliant or just gross? Or
Speaker 3: are they gross and also brilliant and funny? That that's
Speaker 3: like the the triple combination is conquest all three. It's
Speaker 3: hard to say, but maybe.
Speaker 2: You know, I got excited about about a Fulshy film
Speaker 2: earlier this year, and I thought, well, this, this might
Speaker 2: be the one. I got a copy of Murder Rock
Speaker 2: Dancing Death from nineteen eighty four, I think I rented
Speaker 2: it from a video drum, and I was like, this,
Speaker 2: this sounds great. It's a rock musical about you know,
Speaker 2: some sort of like a dance studio murder scenario, and
Speaker 2: there are a lot of dance numbers, you know, kind
Speaker 2: of like an elongated music video by Fulci. This this
Speaker 2: has to be a winner.
Speaker 3: It sounds but it sounds great.
Speaker 2: It sounds good. It sounds so much better on paper.
Speaker 2: Maybe some people love this. Maybe it's like Conquests, you
Speaker 2: have to see it multiple times and you appreciate it.
Speaker 2: But I just didn't like the music. And I felt
Speaker 2: like if the music had been good. It felt like
Speaker 2: if it had really good, solid disco numbers, I could
Speaker 2: have gotten into it more. But I just couldn't. House
Speaker 2: by the Cemetery is another great one. We did a
Speaker 2: weird house episode on the House by the Cemetery. That's
Speaker 2: still one of my favorites. That's like close second to
Speaker 2: Conquest from Me. But you know, and maybe in the
Speaker 2: future we'll come back and watch something else.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: There's of course the Beyond, there's Zombie, and then I've
Speaker 2: also heard interesting things about like his non horror work.
Speaker 2: You know, he did some westerns as well that are
Speaker 2: supposed to be gory and gross, but also more or
Speaker 2: less westerns.
Speaker 3: I just had a thought, which is that I bet
Speaker 3: Luccio Fulci is the filmmaker who has made the films
Speaker 3: that the most people have years later wondered if they
Speaker 3: dreamed them or if it was a movie they saw.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, Like we said, there's often a dream like quality,
Speaker 2: especially in Conquest, and I think that's one of the
Speaker 2: reasons I loved it so much, is that it really
Speaker 2: has this feeling of an unreality that you're cinematically engaging with. However,
Speaker 2: you know, Fulchi never made a Christmas movie really, or
Speaker 2: did he? I don't know, Maybe it was a dream.
Speaker 2: All right, we're gonna gohead and cap it there, but
Speaker 2: we'll be back with you know. The regular schedule of
Speaker 2: episodes this week, Core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Short
Speaker 2: form Artifactor Monster on Wednesday, and on Friday, another Weird
Speaker 2: House Cinema selection. You can, of course email us. Joe
Speaker 2: will throw up that email address in just a minute
Speaker 2: but other ways to engage with us on the show.
Speaker 2: There's a discord server. Email us and we'll send you
Speaker 2: the link for that. There's a Facebook group it is
Speaker 2: the Stuff to Blow your Mind discussion module. Just if
Speaker 2: you're on Facebook, apply there. All you have to do
Speaker 2: is answer a very simple question about the show and
Speaker 2: you'll be admitted. And yeah, if you follow social media
Speaker 2: at all, our social media accounts are currently active. And
Speaker 2: if you are on Instagram, go to STBYM podcast. That
Speaker 2: is our handle there and that's a great way to
Speaker 2: keep up with the show at the moment. There's some
Speaker 2: cool videos on there as well that line up with
Speaker 2: our weird House cinema selections.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Jjposway.
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.
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