The Horror Addiction

On todays episode I'm gonna be chatting it up with acclaimed horror novelist and host of The Murder Coaster Podcast, Matt Brockmeyer. We're gonna be talking about my overall favorite genre, HORROR!! Matt will give us some insight about his writings as well as our thoughts and opinions about the latest smash hit horror films, Nosferatu and The Substance. Chatterbox is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, and YouTube at @Chatterbox-94. Don't forget to check us out on IG @atkmedia_ and listen in on Matt's Podcast Murder Coaster #chatterbox, #horror, #movies, #podcasts

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

According to the beloved masked silent slasher Mike Myers, you can't kill the boogeyman. Hmm. Interesting statement, if you ask me. You see, the reality behind that statement is this the boogeyman is everywhere. Horror is something that consumes our world. It consumes culture, lifestyle. Hey, truth is a thousand times stranger than fiction, and half the stuff we see on the news today is uh is way more disturbing and fucked up than anything that Stephen King has ever put in a novel, or anything David Lynch has ever put on the silver screen. Today, I'm gonna be talking a bit more about horror. It's my favorite subject matter, and I know for those of you who are listening into Chatterbox is a big favorite of yours. We're gonna be talking about horror movies, horror literature, culture, everything that makes us want a shit in our pants when we watch a slasher. So, this is Chatterbox. Let's get started. Welcome to another episode of Chatterbox. I'm Al Tessier, your host, producer, and favorite voice you've probably ever heard whenever you tune in to Spotify. So, today we are going to be diving deep into my favorite topic on planet Earth when it comes to cinema, movies, books, you name it, and that is horror. Joining me is accomplished horror fanatic and host of the Murder Coaster podcast, Matthew Brockmeyer. He's accomplished, he's successful, and he knows probably just as much about the crypt as I do, if not more. Nice to have you on the show, man. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Good yes, it's good to have another horror addict uh with me because I I I think the only other real horror addict I know is my wife. Like, that's that's pretty much it. Like, some people are just real chicken shits these days. Well, that's sad, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

You need to make a new friend group. I don't I don't all my friends are horror fanatics, and I don't want to be friends with you if you're not a horror fanatic.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

So No, that's my glass of vodka. That's what I'm talking about. So tell us a little bit about yourself. We got an eager audience who wants to know more about what you do as a horror fanatic.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Well, I'm a writer. I've got an award-winning novel called Kind of Penthe, uh two book collections of short stories, um Under Rotting Sky, which uh won a little award and was uh reviewed in Scream magazine. Uh some stories from that ended up in an anthology with Stephen King. And I am also a podcast, podcaster, host of Murder Coaster Podcast, which is a true crime podcast.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

And I do, I love true crime. I watch weights frankly, I think I watch way more true crime than uh almost any other subject matter uh that one should be watching.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

And my co-host is uh she won the Bam Stoker Award for her novel uh Daughters of Block Island, and we like make it an audio dramatization. We like act out the crimes and put in sound effects, and uh it gets really grisly sometimes and really gory. But at other times we like take a literary approach. We just did a four-episode series on Edgar Allan Poe, studying his entire life and his death and how all the many theories of why or how he died.

SPEAKER_00 3:25

So I'm I'm guess I think there's a whole conspiracy to be honest, surrounding the death of Edgar Allan Poe and stuff like that. In my honest opinion, seeing as he was probably like the first earliest horror genius, like the person who was the gatekeeper who opened up us to the world of like horror and horror novels and the storytelling behind it. I I don't know. I'd say his demons killed him.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

Well, his demons may very well, and those demons might have been like liquor and opium, but there's so many theories. Some people think he was scratched by a rabbit cat.

SPEAKER_00 4:07

You know, but sounds like a very gruesome way to die, to be honest. Like I oh, okay, even more terrible and stuff like that. Well, I I I love horror. Like, literally, I I I actually just saw Nosferatu with my wife. Uh, if you have not seen it, you are definitely missing out. Um my god. You saw it twice. You saw it twice?

SPEAKER_01 4:34

I I saw it Christmas Day. I mean my son and I went on Christmas Day, the minute it opened, I was I'm a huge Eggers fan. And uh yeah, I like this.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

I I did too. I thought it was phenomenally well made. I I don't want to say it was like tough to follow per se, but I do feel like what they were trying to do was hit the hammer to the nail with sticking to like the original Nosferatu rather than you know, like breaking away from it too much and taking their own spin on it.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

Well, I mean, they definitely, I think, put their own spin on it. They had the whole demonic possession. I mean, that's just like straight up eggers. There were scenes that were just like the witch, you know, where they're like she's possessed by the demon and she's laying down and kind of like laughing, but in this scary, childish demonic way. And then there was all the sex, which I I loved, you know. You know, that that's not really in there.

SPEAKER_00 5:30

Everyone loves sex in movies, like it's something that we cannot step away from. I I I just personally like it.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

Some people don't. Some I've heard a lot of people saying that he was exploiting women, and like um, well, you know, she invited the evil, she is the reason that the evil came. So a lot of people are saying it's anti-feminist, always blaming the women, which I agree with, but I think he's trying to show these tropes, show this Victorian attitude that women were to blame, and to maybe get the conversation going. I don't think he's like confirming the bias, I think he's like exploring the bias.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

Hmm, good take, good analogy. I never thought of it that way. I really didn't. Um, I I'm not 100% like fully familiar with the original Nosferatu and stuff like that. I'm totally familiar with the world of vampires and bloodsuckers that I actually feel has been way too warped over the years. Would you agree with that?

SPEAKER_01 6:31

No, not really. Sorry. I I think that it's it's you know, we just did uh uh a couple hour long history of the vampire film uh on our podcast Murder Coaster, and we started with the very first one and we got went through all the mythos. Some of the earliest of the lesbian vampire, you know, that was around when Dracula was around, you know, Carmella. And um it's just there's so much that can be done with the vampire from the sensual to the animalistic, what blood symbolizes. I just think it's very rich poetically to go anywhere. And some of my favorite versions are the newer ones. My favorite vampire story is Let the Right One In.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

Okay, alright. I'll have to put that on my list.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

Uh the Swedish version. Watch the Swedish version. And if you get a chance, read the book, which is even better than the movie.

SPEAKER_00 7:19

I am.

SPEAKER_01 7:20

You know what I'm talking about, right? With the little girl vampire and like the little boys bullied.

SPEAKER_00 7:24

It's about a little boy who's bullied in a I feel like it sort of rings a bell, but I'm not too too familiar with it. Like the last like little vampire I saw was Abigail with my wife.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

I watched that, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

Yes. What did you think of that?

SPEAKER_01 7:40

I'm gonna be honest, I it kind of by the end of it, I was like, uh, bored. I mean, it had good special effects, it was bloody, it was gory, but I just felt like it was kind of repetitive and but it wasn't really going anywhere. And but it was fun. I mean, it's a fun if you're looking for a fun vampire movie, bam, it's it's good like that.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

That's my exact thought. That's my thought exactly. I'm like, this is comedic horror. And to be honest, I'm not opposed to comedic horror under any circumstances. I've mentioned it on one of my previous episodes. I actually wrote a script for uh well, a screenplay for an indie film. I'm trying I'm looking for the right producer in the right team to make it into a reality. It's called The Demon in the Woods, and like I tried to stick with like really dark horror. Like, my when it comes to horror, my number one go-to is psychological horror. I like stuff that gets inside your head, makes you think, and eventually ends up fucking with your mind in the most morbid ways possible. And that's what I was trying to focus on, but um I I realize that you know what? I don't want this to be two-to-dack. It needs to be amusing. So I definitely added many jokes and kind of twists in there. It's it's a little raunchy kind of jokes and stuff like that, because that's just the way I am. But it's, as I like to put, that perfect bullseye of horror and comedy that balances out perfectly.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

Well, you need to break the tension sometimes. Look at the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. There's some absolutely hilarious parts.

SPEAKER_00 9:20

You know, look what your brother did to the door. You know, that's just and sometimes like if I watch Friday the 13th, I'm not scared. I laugh my ass off the whole damn time.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

Yeah, yeah. I'm wearing a plan nine from outer space shirt, so you know.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

Yes, yeah, no, I I I absolutely do call it an addiction, and I mean there are worse things you can do.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

Call it a lifestyle.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

A lifestyle, even better. Even better. Well, my wife's a bit of a gothic kind of woman, so it like I'm not saying that she like goes all out, um uh like Adam's family gothic per se, but definitely she is if I'm gonna go see a horror film, she's like, okay, I'm in. Let's go. Nice. I mean, my favorite holiday out of all of them in the books is Halloween. And one of my favorite go-to destinations is Salem, Massachusetts. If you haven't gone and you like horror, you really are fucking missing out, pals.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

I have not been, but um, you know, my co-host is from Rhode Island. Oh, and she she told me not to go on Halloween. She's like, don't even go there on Halloween. She's like, it's too much. She's like, go there some other time, and you can really enjoy it.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

There but I will I I'm in California. I don't really Okay, so you're you're in you're yeah, you're in Cali. You're you're where it's sunny, it's hot, and there's unfortunately, and you know what? I'm just gonna take a somber moment and let us say there are wildfires that are practically burning the state to the ground, and we all need together. Well, they say it starts with LA, and then it's I mean, but we've seen what's happened in the past, and it's just spread like crazy. So I say we at least need to pay our respects and hope to God that the people in LA are safe, secure, and doing well at this time.

SPEAKER_01 11:19

Yeah, it's it's it's it's insane, dude. It's absolutely insane. Iconic spots, you know, Malibu and it's devastating to look at. It's it's unbelievable.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

Yeah, that's just the destruction of natural beauty, is what it is. It's not simply like burning tinsel town to the ground, it's the destruction of like these areas Santa Barbara Mountains, yeah. Yeah, yeah. P places that we love and in my opinion, take advantage of or take for granted, to be honest, as to how remarkable they are. Yeah. Now let's get back to horror, because that's what we're here to talk about. Yes, horror. Uh, and you I do slightly back your wife up on Salem. Here's the thing. You No, not my wife, my co-host. Your co-host? My co-host. It's not my wife, no.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

She lives in Rhode Island and I live in California.

SPEAKER_00 12:09

Okay, so with your co-host, I definitely I do have a wife that loves horror.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

Oh, but she's good, good, different case.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

So, yes. I definitely back up your co-host 100%. Um, with Salem, if you do want to go around spooky season, you have to go at like the first week of October. After that, avoid Salem at all costs. You cannot get into a restaurant unless you have made reservations at least three days in advance. You cannot get a hotel or Airbnb under any circumstances unless you're staying in like in a much, much further out suburbial area. Um, you're gonna see at least I don't know, 20 to 30 people all dressed as the Sanderson sisters. Like people and it I don't know, it's just it feels more like it's it's Comic Con for horror addicts. That's the that's the best way to describe it. If you like horror and you like stuff that's scary, it's your it's the go-to comic con. Do you go to Necronomicon in Rhode Island in Providence? No, I do not. I I You should check that out this summer. I almost went to uh one of the Comic Cons in Providence, but uh missed out on the opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

Oh, it's it's based on it's like Necronomicon, so it's all like HP Lovecraft based. Okay, gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

I actually did an episode talking about Comic Cons. One of uh uh my guests uh who's an old friend of mine, he goes to like so many of the conventions and stuff like that and gave us all the details about how awesome it is. I know it's a phenomenal experience for like media junkies and people who may be considered nerds, but we know fall into a category of cool. Yeah, definitely. So when it comes to horror, what would you say is the go-to for horror? I told you I love psychological horror that just fucks around with your mind and in morbid ways and stuff like that. Like my go-to is some of the older stuff the exorcist, the shining, the silence of the lambs, which I know people don't totally consider horror, but if you really absorb horror.

SPEAKER_01 14:20

I I'll fight for it. I fight for everything. I'm like, it's fucking horror, dude. It is, it is, yeah. It is it is like people don't want to call things horror because it's got that stigma, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

Well well, here's the thing. So the author who They call the substance, you know the substance?

SPEAKER_01 14:35

Have you seen that? I loved the substance. So good, so good, right? They're calling it a comedy musical. What the fuck? Demi Moore won the Golden Globe. She won the fucking Golden Globe. Yes, best actress in a comedy musical. Can you fucking believe that? It's fucking insane. Are you like, are you serious? It's like the goriest horror movie that's come out in the past decade.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

Okay, some of the people in Hollywood, I know that they're doing bad right now, but you are really fucked up in the mind. If that is what you are going to define the substance as. Yes, yes. What would you describe it as if body horror?

SPEAKER_01 15:10

Yeah. Undoubtedly, easily.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

Yeah. I wouldn't exactly call I'd call it a mash between body horror and almost kind of psychological horror because the vibe Or art house.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

Art house, you know, where they're where they're making these poetic statements and they're trying to use horror metaphorically to, you know, talk about society and stuff. Which was brilliant. It was a brilliant movie. I fucking loved it, you know.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

Oh, definitely, definitely. Not much dialogue, but really the imagery, the videography, and the focus they had on that change, as I like to put it, that's what really made it brilliant. And what is it? I believe Dennis Quaid's character, who uh what was it, Margaret Quarley said he was actually the scariest thing about the film.

SPEAKER_01 15:57

My wife said the grossest thing was watching him eat shrimp.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

Exactly. That's that's what that's what everyone fed off of was him when he's just stuffing his face. Because my theory is, and I don't know if it's true, I think they may have crawfish, yes. I think they may have modeled his character and persona after another Harvey who we all know about. Oh yeah, yeah. Weinstein, yeah. Or just kind of that the the dark reality of the um I like to describe it as the uh Dude, I've hung out with some Hollywood producers, and they're just like that.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

They're total fucking assholes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

Really, really.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

And they don't give a fuck about and they're like sociopaths and like they don't care about people.

SPEAKER_00 16:42

I call it the underground sex club of the business.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

I didn't see that side of it.

SPEAKER_00 16:48

Yeah. Well, think about like some of the stuff you have to do. I think what was it like back in the 80s and stuff? If you gave a guy a blow job, they would sign you with a three-picture deal.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

Marilyn Monroe, when she signed her her three-picture deal, her first contract, she signed it and she said, Well, that's the last time I I have to give a blow that's the last time I give a blowjob if I don't feel like it.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

Well I tell you, yeah. Like, so I was actually I know a lot about this, and I did a whole episode about it. And if you don't know my story, uh make sure to listen in to the Was I Anna Cult podcast, because me, I am actually an ex-member of a theatrical cult. And I am the one member of the group who has become kind of like the the big advocate, not exactly their knight in shining armor, but the I've been very vocal about it. I've been featured on the Trust Me podcast, the Was I Anna Cult podcast, and one thing I learned from my experience, I mean, I would not be where I am today had I not made the decisions within that group that I did. But one thing I learned about was the Hollywood underworld. The really dark stuff, the stuff that happens when the camera ain't rolling and when the curtain closes.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

It's a long history, man. I mean, from the very beginning, that's the way it was. It was a it's a culture, you know.

SPEAKER_00 18:14

Oh, definitely, 100%. And yes, but getting back to the substance, my take on it was I definitely saw a level of uh psychological horror within it, and when I say that, kind of focusing in the idea that you are your own worst enemy, and you don't even know about it, kind of because with Demi Moore's character, what you see is a woman who wants a level of, I guess one might say, immortal youth that is unaccessible, and she's willing to go to whatever length it takes to make sure that she achieves that overall goal, regardless of the price one has to pay.

SPEAKER_01 18:56

And I it also makes me think, what is the self? Who is the self? Who truly are we? You know what I mean? We're we're who we think we are at any certain time, but those people aren't exactly the same at all.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

No, definitely not at all.

SPEAKER_01 19:10

It's a really deep film.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

What did you think of Margaret Quarley's performance? Because I really like I first saw her in the movie Um Once Upon a Time in Hollywood? No, the nice guys, uh, with uh Russell Crowe and uh Ryan Gosling. That was the first time I was like, Oh my god, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 19:28

I've seen that movie. That's a while back now.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

She must have been young as shit in that. I can't I didn't even recognize you know, I just remember from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood because she was like a Manson girl and I got a thing about Manson girls.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

And here's the kick. All of the people who played the members of the Manson family in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, her, Austin Butler, their careers have skyrocketed tenfold since the movie came out. Like Austin Butler is Elvis Presley. I don't think you can get any bigger than playing the king. The king. Nice. Yes, if you haven't seen it, watch it. He saw it. Yes, um, I I saw a lot of interviews uh with him, and he went to the greatest lengths he possibly could to achieve it. Because for me, and I um I I've talked about this before, is that when you are playing a real life person, whether they be good, evil, or straight up psychotic, you have to be, and some um people find this a controversial statement, you have to be respectful towards them. Because one way or another, for good or for ill, they were a real person.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

I mean, yeah, at the same time, you might want to display them as villainous, but I everyone should be like given depth, no matter who they are, in a way, you know what I mean? Yeah, but I guess there is a responsibility with uh real people for sure. Which is interesting is as a true crime person and right doing all this true crime stuff, it's like wow, you're always sometimes I'm like forget almost you know what I mean? You gotta remember these are real people.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

Yes, exactly. It's I I say all the time, truth is way stranger than fiction, and some of the realities of our world are far more disturbing than anything Stephen King has ever written in his career. And he's written more than 50 books.

SPEAKER_01 21:17

Yeah, you couldn't you couldn't put this stuff in a book because people wouldn't believe it. It's too wacky and too disgusting and too fucking weird.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

Yeah, definitely 100%. Like, did you see Dahmer? Did you see the the Dahmer? What did you think?

SPEAKER_01 21:32

I watched it twice and it's five hours long, ten hours of Dahmer. Yeah, I loved it. I thought it was uh fabulous. And you know, I'm and I know all about the case and stuff, and I thought they did just an excellent job, you know. Me too. And how they brought in the civil rights part of it, you know, and um talked about all that. I thought that was great. Uh uh said a lot about society and people and Jesse Jackson. They showed Jesse Jackson giving a speech. I thought that was great. Um and they also did that uh documentary too, uh the Dahmer Tapes. That was pretty good.

SPEAKER_00 22:01

I have not uh seen that yet. I've they kind of came out at the same time as like companion pieces. I've seen the legendary Stone Phillips interview uh about Dahmer. Um, one thing I I taken a lot of psychology classes throughout my academic uh experience and I used it to my advantage to read people. If you see the Stone Phillips interview, yes, Dahmer was a sociopath. He displayed no emotion, but if you just pay attention to his eyes, that's how you read the emotion that's flooding through him that he cannot display. Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

That's when the cannibalism started.

SPEAKER_00 22:44

Yeah. That's I I didn't consider I don't consider that that series to be true crime. I consider that to be horror because it was fucking disturbing.

SPEAKER_01 22:55

True crime and horror constantly uh are are are emerging and in and out of each other and affecting each other and like yeah, can easily be seen as one or the other.

SPEAKER_00 23:06

One thing that I really think about horror a lot these days is that horror is as I like to put it, it's it's coming back. Um I feel that it's a golden age. Yes, I feel that for a certain for a certain period of time that um a lot of producers and directors chose to step away from horror and like I think about stuff from the 80s and stuff, like you know, like Halloween, Friday the 13th, uh um Nightmare on Elm Street, that they bel that there was this kind of instinct within producers, writers, and directors that if we want to make it scary, we just need to have blood. Blood and more blood, that's gonna make it scary. But the kicker is this it doesn't make it more scary under any circumstances. Like I said, I laugh when I watch the movie uh Nightmare on Elm Street. I'm not like startled under any circumstances.

SPEAKER_01 24:01

There's very little blood in Texas Chainsaw Massacre, if any. And it's one of the scariest movies just from the tone, the music, every single thing about it, the angles that the camera goes in. It's just the shadows, the um it's a scary movie. You know, and there's nothing that you can put your finger on, you know, and it's no there's no gorgeous. There's also very little blood in Halloween.

SPEAKER_00 24:24

Yeah, I just me for Halloween's scary.

SPEAKER_01 24:27

It's a good one because it's like this dreamscape nightmare. Because everyone has a dream where they're being stalked by this faceless figure. So I think it hits on these primordial kind of uh feelings, you know.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

For me, what I love most about Halloween is just the score, the music. That's my favorite part, and I I'm sure that's probably for for a lot of people, that is their that's what really like, in my opinion, I feel that the music brings it to life and helps to amplify it uh to a new level.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

John Carpenter's a master, a musician as well as filmmaker, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 25:05

Yes, definitely 100%. But you said that we're entering a golden age of horror. Like, what do you say when you define golden age? Like, give me some.

SPEAKER_01 25:16

824.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

824?

SPEAKER_01 25:19

824? So the production company that's making all the movies.

SPEAKER_00 25:24

A24, yes. They are rocketing.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

Every one of their movies is fantastic. Oh yes.

SPEAKER_00 25:29

I've watched uh We Live in the world.

SPEAKER_01 25:31

I mean, Nasrado's 824, you know what I mean? Um, you know, The Witch, uh Lighthouse, um, you know, uh she's just some hereditary midsummer.

SPEAKER_00 25:41

Um Midsummer was very was actually so okay. My number one celebrity crush in the business more than anything else is the gorgeous, beautiful, talented Florence Pugh.

SPEAKER_01 25:55

You must have really liked uh old uh what's it called? Um the atomic bomb movie.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

Yes, yes, I like her.

SPEAKER_01 26:03

She was uh looking pretty good in that one.

SPEAKER_00 26:06

Yes, no, sure her career is taking off. She's fantastic, she's an incredible actress. But Midsommar, because being a former cult member myself, that movie was actually really tough for me to watch at certain points. Like, um, like I said, truth is way stranger than fiction. So that one kind of like struck me inside a bit. Yeah, definitely, yes, yeah. But so A24, they are the ones who are reintroducing the golden age. Do you feel that? I think so.

SPEAKER_01 26:38

Because I don't like Bloomhouse is fine, like it's I just think that they're cheesy, they're not they're not up to that standard, that the the artistic standard. You know, it's like this it's all art now. You don't really see like slasher films, even there was a slasher film just recently, but they tried to make it like an art film. What was that? Did you see that where it's just like really, really boring and quiet, like from the point of view of the killer and he's going through the forest? What the hell was the name of that one? It just came out recently. But a lot of people liked it. It was super arty, but it was just like so boring. But um, I think like you know, horror's become an artistic medium now, and it's really fascinating to see what people are doing with it, you know, bizarre stuff. The lighthouse. What the fuck is that?

SPEAKER_00 27:22

One thing I like about one thing I like about A24 is that they are willing to throw away what I refer to as the rule book and do it the way they want it to. Like you know what the rule book is. Am I correct?

SPEAKER_01 27:39

Well, the traditional 80s rule book they throw away, but I would say that they keep in line with with classic films, like you were saying The Shining or The Exorcist, things like that, where you're on a on a deeper level, more literary.

SPEAKER_00 27:50

Uh, you know what I mean? Yeah, no, when I say the rule book, I mean the way Hollywood operates these days, which is everything has to be censored, everything has to be soft, there's certain stuff you can't say under any circumstances because we have a generation that's so easily triggered and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

No, but the movies are insane these days. I mean, the the things that they're showing. God, have you seen the new Terrifier movie? Terrifier 3? Dude, like a close-up of a dude's dick and balls getting chainsawed off. Or just getting straight chainsawed off. You know, images of Jesus, Mother Mary, uh, little first five minutes, little children being killed. Like it is is a non-stop insane gore fest. You know, there was very little storyline. It was a stupid movie, but I've fucking loved it.

SPEAKER_00 28:40

Like, if there's no storyline, then is it really worth watching? That's the question.

SPEAKER_01 28:45

No, if do you like gratuitous violence in gore? Really well shot, like very beautifully shot, but really, you know, with this cool-looking clown that's really spooky looking, and it's really spooky and creepy, but no, my favorite horror clown will always be Pennywise.

SPEAKER_00 29:02

Nice. Yes, yeah. Bill Skarsgard, he he nailed it, and of course, yeah. No Sparatu, he was on his A game in Nosperatu. Clan I mean he was like Unrecognizable, yeah. Um, and just the way he was able to really embody the character, he's truly his father's son. Because his father can play a really fucked up individual. I mean, you've seen the girl in the dragon tattoo.

SPEAKER_01 29:31

Yeah, a long time ago.

SPEAKER_00 29:34

He played a really fucked up individual in that movie. So I feel that he his son has inherited that quality.

SPEAKER_01 29:41

Do you ever watch that old TV show Hemlock, um, Hemlock Drive? He was in it, he played a vampire in it, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

Yes, yeah, yeah, no. I uh but definitely like the world of horror is is changing, and I'm glad that they're really kind of stepping away from the norm and getting back into the classic and stuff like that back when because I I've wa I've watched so many stuff so much stuff from like the 70s and parts of the in like the early eighties and stuff, uh when they knew how to just get under your skin, when they knew how to twist with your mind, and they make you they make you think and look at reality from a totally different angle.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

Which is what art is supposed to do. You just defined what art is supposed to do.

SPEAKER_00 30:26

Yes, exactly, exactly, 100%. For me though, and you may find this ridiculous, the most disturbing, horrifying, fucked up movie I ever saw in my life was A Clockwork Orange, directed by my favorite director and uh my inspiration, Stanley Kubrick. That was the most fucked up, disturbed movie I'd ever seen in my life.

SPEAKER_01 30:50

Yeah, it's a good one. You know, I've seen it literally probably hundreds of times since I was a little tiny child.

SPEAKER_00 30:57

How young are we talking? Like, when did your parents?

SPEAKER_01 31:00

My parents weren't just weren't there, you know. They just the uh the the TV was all mine. Oh cable TV. I also was allowed to walk to the video store and rent movies.

SPEAKER_00 31:12

I mean, me, I I have no interest in like brainwashing my kids with Disney and like uh Disney DreamWorks illumination shit and stuff like that. I'm like, you're gonna watch when I have kids, they're gonna watch the movies dad likes. Like, literally, I plan on letting them watch the movie American Sniper when they're five.

SPEAKER_01 31:32

Yeah, well that they don't always uh react to it in the way that you want them to. I have two kids. One's 19, one's 11. And um, I've gone through the horror thing with both of them. Um it's interesting. How they react.

SPEAKER_00 31:48

I find it interesting. Like when when when it comes to exposing kids at a young age to horror, like how do you feel that some kids do not like I have friends whose kids like it and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 32:00

My son didn't really well he I tried to show him like Night of the Living Dead, and it was too scary for him, and uh other things, and then he got like an interest in it. He had a deep interest. This is really weird because we're total film geeks and buffs. So I started showing him like German expressionism, like the original Nosferato, and he liked that. Um Metropolis was like one of his favorites, so he was like into these weird 1920s black and white movies, and then as he got older, you know, he wanted to, and then I remember when the Stephen King's first it came out. I can't, he was pretty little, he was probably like 11, 10, he wanted to see it, and I was like, Well, I'm going, you can come see it. And he came with me and he was nervous, and like when it got to that scene in the basement, he's like, I don't know, I'm really scared. I don't know, and I'm like, Well, you know, I'm here in the movie theater, I'm not going anywhere. You just could have to like close your eyes, but well, I and he he he accepted it, and ever since then he's been able to watch just about anything, you know.

SPEAKER_00 33:01

Well, I love the news the new it and it chapter two more than I do the Tim Curry version. No, so I'm talking about the new one, yeah. Yep, and I can explain to you why it's perfect. So Stephen King was on set, not all the time, but on a vast number of occasions. I mean, he makes a cameo in it chapter two, yes, yeah. Because the director was determined to get it right. If you know enough about Stephen King and his opinion, there needs to be an orgy. Yes, there does.

SPEAKER_01 33:34

How are you gonna defeat uh how are you gonna defeat a space spider without a pretty teen a teen orgy? To think about it. It's the only way you can defeat a space spider.

unknown 33:45

Can you?

SPEAKER_00 33:46

Is that really the way? Is that powerful? That's right. I mean, sex is the reason why we're able to produce human life.

SPEAKER_01 33:55

No. It's probably a smart move to like take leave that part out. We're just gonna leave this part out.

SPEAKER_00 34:02

Because you you mentioned that, like, you I I don't want to say you have a relationship with the king of horror, but you mentioned uh Stephen King in regards to your credentials with uh writing and horror. Uh elaborate on that for me.

SPEAKER_01 34:17

I was just in a in a book with Stephen King, like a book of short stories, and he was in there. Uh it's a bunch of really heavy hitters in that book. Um, I don't know, it was a lot of really good writers in there, and I I was just lucky enough to get in there. It was pretty cool to see your name next to Stephen King. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 34:33

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely. You've hit the jackpot.

SPEAKER_01 34:36

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:36

Yeah, because here's the thing that I think some people know about Stephen King and others don't is that when it comes to like the adaptations of his novels and stuff, um, he's gonna take it very, very personally if you fuck up.

SPEAKER_01 34:55

Like literally I don't know if that's even true, oh man. He notoriously gave Stanley Kubrick a world of shit. He they just had they just had like a personal fucking thing going on right from the beginning. But well, what happened was Stanley Kubrick did an interview in Playboy magazine, and he's like, Yeah, I got this story from this guy, he's a hack, a horror writer. It wasn't even scary. I had to try to make it scary, no one even died is in it. And he's he's like, you know, because Hollorin doesn't die in it, you know. He's like, I had to make it someone die to make it scary. And Stephen King was like, See, really, man, you know, and at this time, Stephen King wasn't Stephen King, like we know him today, he was just a new writer, and they just had beef, man, that they never got over. But oh, I mean, like, there were some terrible King adaptions, like the uh uh The Boogeyman that just came out. Did you see that?

SPEAKER_00 35:45

No, I didn't.

SPEAKER_01 35:46

It's based on a short story that uh from Night Shift, and um, there's already been a couple different film versions over the past three fucking decades, and Hegel was like all about it. Oh, this is great, this is wonderful, da da da, and it had like deviated so far from the story, and he's still or like the new Firestarter. Did you see that?

SPEAKER_00 36:07

I want to.

SPEAKER_01 36:08

I want to it is awful, it has nothing to do with the st it's like completely different. They just made a whole new different story, you know? Like, um, and he was all about it. So I just think that if you're if he's cool with you as a director and stuff, he'll be cool with your shit. Like, you know what I mean? I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 36:27

Yeah, well, well, he I I saw an interview with him about his relationship with Stanley Kubrick. He said they only met once, and he said he in he described Kubrick as being very impulsive. I'm like, everyone knows that Kubrick was impulsive. I shared the same birthday as the guy. Do you nice? That's good. Yes, yes, I'm very proud of it because he's he's my inspiration for writing. Uh, I talked about this in another one of my episodes. When I write a script, I'm currently working on my second script right now. Uh, it's called My Cousin Juan. It is about the drug wars in Latin America and their impact on the United States, told from a different angle. Because here's the thing about Kubrick: he never did the same thing twice. If you reflect on his entire career in every movie he made, he was a chameleon. He was a very not exactly impulsive individual, but he was one for change. And they even said, if you want it easy, just don't work for Kubrick, because he was gonna make it tough. And one of the most famous things he said, he said this to Malcolm McDowell. I don't know what I want, but I know what I don't want. Right. That says it all. Yeah, he'd make you do like 86 takes.

SPEAKER_01 37:46

I mean, he broke Shelly Duvall. He's like straight broker. But I mean, you can tell that she's broken and it looks beautiful. It's fantastic. You're like, she's fucked up, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 37:56

He actually he actually gave her shit on set sometimes. He was giving it because no, like mad shit, dude.

SPEAKER_01 38:02

There's all kinds of footage of it. There's footage of her doing coke, and he's going, That's not gonna help you, Shelly. It was the age because his daughter was made a little documentary about the shining, Kubrick's daughter, that you can find. It's like on YouTube and stuff, and it's like half of it is just him giving Shelly Duvall shit. Like just really and being so cool with Jack Nicholson, just being like buddy buddy with him and just but look at the performance you got.

SPEAKER_00 38:30

Yes, yes, definitely, yeah. It it destroyed her, but it is her it is definitely her legacy. That's the thing. Like Kubrick broke her, but gave her something that we will forever remember. And like here's the thing also about like uh about horror is when it is like the most favor our favorite character always ends up being the villain. And what's your take on villains? Like, what would you say is the perfect villain?

SPEAKER_01 39:02

Oh, geez, I don't know. You know, um I like uh I like uh Patrick Bateman, he's pretty fun. Uh you know, Hannibal Lecter is a pretty good villain. Like more the I for me, I'm like a kind I like more humans than monsters. Same very much so.

SPEAKER_00 39:20

My my favorite villain in the book is the is the gentleman villain, as I describe it. Somebody who is charming, charismatic, manipulative, persuasive. Hannibal Lecter. Exactly, Hannibal Lecter. The the the the real origin behind Hannibal Lecter. Uh, so he was actually he was not um insp inspired by any real-life serial killer or murderer. Um, the author of the books um was actually a a crime journalist in the 1960s for like really vicious crimes and stuff like that, like homicide. And every single portion of the Hannibal Lecter saga and the things that made Lecter Lecter are inspired by true crime events. They're inspired by actual murders and actual homicides.

SPEAKER_01 40:13

Well, yeah, well, the part where he has um, you know, the young agent going in to interview him is based on the FBI going to interview Ted Bundy about the Green River Killer. Because, you know, the FBI went to Ted Bundy and we're asking him, how do we catch this fucking guy? And Ted Bundy told him, When you find a body, just stake it out and wait, because he's gonna come back to have sex with it, which ended up to be totally true. But they just couldn't leave a body laying there in the forest, rotting like that, like staked out. And then, of course, um Buffalo Bill, the uh, you know, if Silence of the Lambs, he's based off of like Ed Gean.

SPEAKER_00 40:49

Uh a mash of Ed Gean and his uh persuasion is based on Ted Bundy. Because Ted Bundy, if you know enough about him, like I know a ton about American serial killers, I've been studying them for years. Uh Bundy would put his arm in a sling to pretend that he was injured, and he used that as his tool to lure women to their death.

SPEAKER_01 41:12

And he did that, yeah. Well, you say you're about a size 28.

SPEAKER_00 41:18

She was an American girl. I thought this was a podcast, not karaoke night. No, and also, uh, spoiler alert, anybody who likes the show Monsters, their next their next season is Ed Gain.

SPEAKER_01 41:36

I know, I'm so excited. I saw the pictures, it looks great.

SPEAKER_00 41:39

Like, definitely. I'm really stoked. My question is this can he live up to being Ed Gain? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 41:46

That guy, what's his name? I can't even remember. The Sons of Anarchy guy. He was in my town the other day at the thrift store. They made a big deal about it. They're like, what's he doing here at the thrift store? Oh well. I think he seems fine. I used to watch Sons of Anarchy. I have a friend who used to write for it and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 42:03

Yes, I'm you know what? I I I'm starting to think to myself, I need to maybe move out to LA if I really want to make it in the big shots and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 42:13

They say that you have the same chance of winning the lottery as you do moving to LA with a script. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 42:20

Yeah, I know. Like rejection is like it rejection is brutal. I saw an interview with the Duffer brothers, the guys created Stranger Things. They got rejected 20 times before they were able to finally sell the script and stuff. And I'm my screenplay uh has gotten a few bites, but people have definitely like strolled away. The number one feed I've gotten more than anything else is that rather than make it a feature film, it should be broken down into a miniseries because I wrote it in an autour style.

SPEAKER_01 42:55

The miniseries is where it's at today. I mean, I to see things did you see the New Salems a lot? I thought that was terrible, and uh I thought they should have made it like a 10-hour fucking miniseries, you know? It's such a complicated story.

SPEAKER_00 43:07

Yeah, I didn't have the chance to see it, but I definitely will back you up 100% because they generally change the story, it's terrible. I've I've read the book, so I I know for a fact it's a very elongated and stretched and stretched out story and stuff, and that um even though like we have the classic movie and everything like that with the Toby Hooper version? Correct, yes. There's so much more to tell in Salem's Lot than you can put on the screen for like what two hours? It's definitely a whole town. And actually, if I were to direct it, I would shoot the whole thing in black and white. Interesting take.

SPEAKER_01 43:51

Did you see Midnight Mass? A lot of people compare that to Salem's Lot. Oh, great. It's a great movie. Mike Flanagan, you know.

SPEAKER_00 43:57

The reason I would shoot it in black and white is. Because I I call that adding the Hitchcock element.

SPEAKER_01 44:04

I like black and white movies.

SPEAKER_00 44:05

Yes, because if if we didn't have Alfred Hitchcock, we probably would not have horror. He was not exactly horror per se, but he was the master of suspense.

SPEAKER_01 44:13

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 44:14

He introduced us to the world a bit, and like we know the the lighthouse was uh a black and white version, stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 44:21

I feel that psycho is like a legendary horror milestone masterpiece, icon, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:28

Definitely. I actually I actually what is it? One of the um one of the scripts I've been working on. I th I think I I believe I I did it in uh I think I did it in the Demon in the Woods. I actually made a a punchline joke about Psycho just to add to the element of uh of horror. I I like really had to reflect deeply. It took me five years to write the script. Um so it's something I'm very account I'm proud of and stuff like that. But in order to really appeal to an audience, I needed to add jokes and humor from other horror movies. Like, in it, one of the lines is about the main characters were performing what they describe as a half-ass exorcism, and they're talking to uh uh they're talking to a guy, and he's like, I thought that's something that only priests in Hollywood movies do. Because if anybody is familiar with the exorcist, like you'll know what I'm talking about. My dad actually met the um the actor who played the young priest in the exorcist world. Oh really? Damien I know about that guy a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 45:41

He's like he was like a stage actor in New York, right?

SPEAKER_00 45:45

Yes, he was uh big, he was in the theater world, uh not really the Hollywood world, and he did a lot of writing too. Yeah. Yes. How he got the role, I'm not I don't really remember per se. Did you see the new Exorcist film?

SPEAKER_01 46:02

The Exorcist uh unfortunately I had the displeasure of seeing it.

SPEAKER_00 46:07

Okay, describe displeasure. Tell me what was so displeasuring about it.

SPEAKER_01 46:12

Oh, I don't know where to start. I mean, uh just the idea that they had alright, when uh here's one of my pep pees. Helen Bernstein. They bring her in there, they they probably paid her all this money to make this cameo, and she just makes the most ridiculous cameo, and it seems like she's laughing through it. And then all of a sudden, what they just like stab her in the eyeball. Like she's on the movie for like just like a couple minutes, and it's just like re- utterly re- It was almost comedic. Almost a laugh at what happened. And then they bring Linda Blair in. I don't even think she had a line. She just like shows up out of nowhere at the end for no reason.

SPEAKER_00 46:48

It was just felt like very, I think, like two lines, I think two lines max.

SPEAKER_01 46:54

It was like I love you, mama, or something. Yeah, and it was like it was just and that whole storyline there with them too was just like so forced and ridiculous and like told and not seen in any way, you know what I mean? Like, and I just felt like everything was over the top, and when they brought in all the different religions and stuff, I am I'm not I'm not a religious person. I'm actually, if you want to know the truth, like religious habit. Okay, I'm but that's just it's in a Catholic world, it's a Catholic story in a Catholic world where so if you went and watched Coney and the Barbarian, you'd be like, Well, this is the barbarian world, this is the world that they live in, and this is and so when you watch the exorcist, it's the Catholic world, and you you take that, you're like, this is the way the Catholic churches set up to think with all their weird demons and devils and bullshit, and uh they were introducing all these other new religions and stuff, you know what I mean, and bringing them in and trying to bind them, and it just felt so forced and like an attempt to maybe be like more uh uh uh you know inviting or something, more but it just which which would normally maybe work and be cool, but I felt in that circumstance it did not work, and it was just truly terrible. And the two girls made it even trite, and then the main actor, the main guy, the father of the two girls, that guy couldn't act, man. I mean, he had the same facial expression the entire this like this.

SPEAKER_00 48:17

Oh definitely, definitely 100%. He was bland, he was yeah, I don't want to say straightforward per se, but he definitely stuck to only one, he stuck to what he knew. He didn't ex he didn't really embody the idea and stuff like that. He didn't really soak in the genre, he should have soaked in the genre a bit more, and I feel if he had done that, he would have gotten better props than than how he performed, because he was very bland, in my opinion. I I I definitely myself in regards to him, I was disappointed.

SPEAKER_01 48:53

And you see Mike Flanagan's now making one.

SPEAKER_00 48:56

Really?

SPEAKER_01 48:57

Yes, a prequel, I think maybe. I don't know, but he it's under production is happening, if the script's been approved, a pre-production's underway.

SPEAKER_00 49:06

It's it's you talk about like how it does, it revolves around the Catholic world and stuff like that. I have actually considered this, and I think I don't know because I'm I'm a little apprehensive about writing it because I know how judgmental the Catholics are and stuff about the real Cat real Catholicism. I want to write a a a smooth uh about the pedophilia within the Catholic Church. Yeah, yeah. I actually I feel um not to stray away from horror, but focus on horror in regards to what I said. The reality is ten times stranger than fiction, far more disturbing than anything Stephen King has written in his career. It's Did you see the heretic? No, I didn't. No, I didn't. I heard about it, I heard about it, and I need to see it. Um, because here's the thing so much has surfaced within the past five years now about like the real inner workings of the Catholic Church, and there's actually a movement going on as we speak within the Vatican, the new generation of priests and reverends are trying to organize and get legal justice for every single victim of Catholicism pedophilia before the elder generation dies out. Too little, too late. Definitely, definitely. I was talking about it with uh uh some co-workers of mine who uh have their own experience within the church, and they said, Yeah, it's not gonna happen. It's just not gonna happen because the the they have way more power than we actually are truly aware of. But I feel that it's time that somebody broke the mold and took it to a new level and showed the reality of religion.

SPEAKER_01 50:56

Didn't that movie win the Academy Award uh about the newspaper article, a newspaper journalist in Boston that broke the story? Michael Keaton played it. He might have even won the Academy Award. What was that called? Like the story, the the something, the something, like the some the I can't remember.

SPEAKER_00 51:14

I know what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_01 51:16

Byline, the tagline, the the headline, I think. Headline, it's not a it's not, but it's just like that. It's like the headline, yeah, yeah, something like that.

SPEAKER_00 51:24

Um yes, yeah. It was really good. Yeah, so like if people ever they should make a horror version of me.

SPEAKER_01 51:30

I mean, oh that's so creepy. Catholic stuff. I like Catholic stuff because it's so fucking creepy. I have like some Mother Marys around here and shit.

SPEAKER_00 51:37

Me too.

SPEAKER_01 51:38

Like the imagery is so dark and weird.

SPEAKER_00 51:40

In the Demon in the Woods, one of the characters is actually a priest, but he's different. Like he could walk into you. No, no. Oh. He's kind of he's the the priest who is not totally in touch with tradition. Like, I I I've already visualized this the scene and stuff like that. When you walk into his office and stuff, you see on his desk the book of Revelations and like a journal, and right over his right there in front of him is a picture of Father Damien uh Amort, the Pope's exorcist and stuff. So you can tell that this guy is not your traditional priest. This is a guy who really is more fascinated in the inner workings of religion, like the the dark demonologies of it? Yes, the demonologies and stuff. I love that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 52:32

I love demons and shit, man.

SPEAKER_00 52:34

Yes, yeah. And and yeah, I thought that that would be definitely something that needed to be brought to light. And I really am thinking about I I've I've got too many scripts kind of in the works right now, and I need to focus on them. You're a writer, so you know how it is. We get a thousand brilliant ideas in one sitting, but then we sit down and are like, okay, one sitting at a time, one story at a time. Yes, it's hard work. Like, right now, like, here's the reality: the Demon in the Woods only took me three days to write. I just sat down on my ass, like every good writer does, had my eyes cemented to my laptop for like four to six hours each day, and just reviewed it, typed until okay, I got that spicy ending, end script. But it took me five years of reviews, opinions, criticism in order to get it perfect.

SPEAKER_01 53:34

Writing is rewriting.

SPEAKER_00 53:36

Mm-hmm. Yes, yeah. And I told myself, well, the one I'm like I said, I'm currently working. Um, I had started a s a script that's inspired by my cult experience called Vernon Hills. I've actually put that on hiatus because uh I want to um it's it's it's based on it's inspired by my own experience and the experience of about uh 20 other people. So uh part of my mission is to not just do them justice, but be very true to them, because these were people who uh were not just deeply affected, but also were by my side through some of the hardest times of my life and kind of helped to keep me going. So I want to actually uh save that a bit and kind of consult with them, talk with them, and maybe even like record some of their stories and experience before I proceed any further, and then you know, like they see it on the silver screen and they're like, Al, you didn't tell us, why didn't you talk to us? Like this happened to all of us, and so be yeah, so I'm focusing on my cousin Juan, which is about the the drug wars and stuff like that. Um you you love true crime. Do you so here's the thing Do you ever watch those videos about airport arrests with drugs?

SPEAKER_01 54:59

Sometimes I get them in my feed, like on my in like reels or TikTok. Yeah, I get them. Sure, I watch that shunner shit. I watch, I watch uh I got it's like a guilty pleasure because I mean uh it's not really like studying I consider true crime like a study of society, a study of you know culture, of peoples, of law, you know what I mean? Watching uh drunk ladies get arrested on TikTok isn't technically true crime, but it's pretty uh guilty pleasure. And when I watch all that shit, people getting busted at the airport, uh, all kinds of weird shit. Shootouts, some car chases, all that shit.

SPEAKER_00 55:39

Yeah, so I watch I watch uh I watch them a lot, and my wife is from Latin America, so she knows some of the inner working. So let's put it this way: people need to understand not every drug kingpin is Walter White or Gus Frank. What if I told you that some of these people are doing it solely out of desperation because they know that like a uh a crackhead in North Carolina will pay them a very pretty penny so that their family can be stable.

SPEAKER_01 56:11

Oh yeah, I would say 99% of them are doing it out of desperation. The ones that get caught. The ones that get caught. The ones that get caught are usually, yeah, totally. They wouldn't be putting themselves in that situation.

SPEAKER_00 56:24

Yeah, because people think too much about like the drug wars. They think about the blood, they think about the violence, they think about the mutilation in the streets of water as this, this story is about the other side, the more human side, the desperation, this is all I know, this is what will keep my family alive.

SPEAKER_01 56:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:45

Yes, yeah. As as a writer for me, whether it be horror, whether it be truth, whether it be um comedy and stuff, I like to really break the mold and kind of focus on um, how do I put it per se, the uh the other side of the story that uh is more truth than what we perceive as reality.

SPEAKER_01 57:10

I mean, that's what literature is all about.

unknown 57:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:12

Right. Like you as a writer, tell me a bit more. What do you focus on? If you're writing a the next spicy horror novel or comic or whatever, what is your what's your go-to methodology? What angle are you aiming at?

SPEAKER_01 57:29

One of the main things I explore, one of the things that scares me the most as a father and uh is the uh the uh annihilation of a family, the a family breaking apart, and you know and the culture that binds a family breaking apart. So I'm out here in Northern California, and it's like this whole pot-growing culture, this whole pot-growing world. So, like a lot of my stories are about uh families that are involved in cannabis and the horror stories that can come from that. Um so like the book story I'm working on right now is about um a family, and they were like hippies in the woods, and the dad was all about organic gardening and homesteading and being close to the earth, but the mom was moving more in towards the money direction and also like processing cannabis, turning weed into like gummies and soda pops, lollipops, oils, vape pens, and she becomes very successful. And when and when weed gets legal, the price of growing it is like nothing. So they move up into the city now so that she can pursue this thing. She's got a warehouse now, she's making, and she's famous for making weed lollipops.

SPEAKER_02 58:36

And it's this whole weed lollipop thing.

SPEAKER_01 58:38

But the but the husband is like this dreadlocked hippie, and he wants to like live on it. He's like, What about the soil? What about the plant? You know, you're taking it, you're stripping it away of all of its nature and turning it into like a chemical, and they're like having this, they're breaking apart because of this. And they had lived in this like little cabin that was completely off-grid, and now they move into a house that's like a smart house. There's a screen on everything, and the place is just haunted as fuck. Like it all the screens aren't working, everything's going weird, the doors keep locking, unlocking. It's like it's it's crazy, and the horrible murder ensues, and the entire family falls apart. It turns into like a crazy revenge story. It's uh it goes off the rails. It starts as like a family drama exploring this dynamic between like the hippie husband and the more um yuppie mom, and the way their different views on cannabis diverge, and this like whole cultural shift which is taking place right now in California with legalization, because legalization's completely like changed everything. But then it just turns into out-of-control horror, bloodbath.

SPEAKER_00 59:41

Nice, nice. That's interesting. That's definitely I I wouldn't have seen that coming. That's uh that's good. I definitely am I I'm making sure that in my cousin Juan that there is some blood and mutilation stuff. There's a scene I I wrote where you have Juan talking with his his counterpart, uh, who hi his cousin, um, and he shows him pictures about like people who he cared about very deeply and may have done deals with, and I'm like, this is the reality of the price one has to pay. Like, kind of I I put in there like a woman who was brutally raped before they started breaking her bones, or a guy whose uh decapitated head was mailed to his wife as kind of a trophy/slash message and stuff like that. Um I I definitely try to focus on the human element, like this is all I know, this is what keeps us afloat. But you can't have the drug wars without war, if you get what I'm saying. Yeah. Yes, definitely. And I know I need to I I've considered so much about circling back to writing horror. I really have, but I think for me it's this, it's actually a lot harder than people think it is. Am I right?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:02

Well, it is to to not be cheesy, to keep it from falling into like tropes and and you know what I mean, and genre. And I mean, because most of I like to watch horror movies, but a lot of the books I read are not horror. I don't like I actually read more literary works, which are actually more disturbing and scary than some of the horror, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:23

Oh, definitely, definitely, yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:26

I don't really like I like to watch a werewolf movie, but I don't really like reading werewolf books, honestly. I don't know why.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:31

I just sometimes are really well done, you know, like Stephen Graham Jones or somebody, but yeah, because with werewolves, if you if you put it in literature, you need to make sure that the werewolf really comes alive. Like you have to be very detailed about it and get into like the actual graphic element when if you want to like clasp on to that person and really just let them understand a werewolf is a werewolf and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:01

And not be silly, yeah. I think the silly aspect is the hardest thing, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:07

One thing that I think actually can ruin uh horror movies or just like action in general, is when they dramatize the violence and the killings too much. I don't always love that.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:21

Do you feel it's good? Do you okay?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:25

I just enjoy it. Like I was just saying, Terrifier 3, that's all it is. There's it's it's just non-stop, like this stupid clown killing people. You know what I mean? And there's like they try to put in some kind of story that is like, but it and some people who are big fans will be like, well, there's a story there. There's not, it's ridiculous. There is technically a story, but it's just stupid. I mean, it's just non-stop violence. But I mean, if you're you know, it's just like it's non-think, it's like guilty pleasures, like I was just talking about. You know what I mean? You're just like, I'm just gonna watch this clown kill people. I don't I don't want to think.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:56

I mean, like you think you see a movie like natural born killers and stuff like that, and that's just a slaughterfest. Is it amazing?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:04

But they were trying to be artistic, you know what I mean? Like I I like and then other violent films, uh Wild at Heart, you know, um, you know, a lot of David Lynch stuff that oh David Lynch is brilliant.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:16

He he really I I think the guy has a really fucked up mind, but a brilliant uh perspective on filmmaking. Yeah. Yeah, cuz because you do need that. You do need to have a bit of a sick mind in order to create this level of brilliance and stuff. But I I was watching a uh uh in an interview about the behind-the-scenes making of the movie uh Sicario, De of the Soldado, and stuff like that, and uh it was uh I the videographer, um, because if you have not seen it, you need to watch it. The videography and cinematic angles they put into it were brilliant, but he said something uh about it. He said, Violence is violence. I don't want to dramatize it too much. It's just like if somebody's gonna get shot, straight up shoot them.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:06

Yeah. I mean, if someone's dying, it is a dramatic thing. I don't know. You know, I can see both perspectives. I personally just like I think it's like salt and pepper egg, you know what I mean? You can overdo it, it can be stupid. Same with sex, but it's something that just like, you know what I mean, it gets your blood flowing, gets your heart pumping.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:21

No, sex needs to be pulled out, man. It has to. I mean, you and I both know how Game of Thrones is and stuff like that. It has to be pulled out. It's it's it's kind of a must. If not, it's not pleasurable.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:39

Senseless sex and violence, I don't know. It's not very it's it is what it is. It can definitely add flavor to like anything, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:48

Yes, it makes it nice and spicy. Yeah. Yes, yeah. And to all of you folks out there who are willing to spice things up, who have open ears, who want to be pleasured, and all you media junkies out there, anyone who's listening in who wants to start their own podcast, you can do so using Riverside. And of course, if you want to support this podcast and have a chance to be a guest in the show, you can follow me on Instagram at ATK Media, or you can check me out on YouTube if you don't have uh access to Spotify or Apple Podcasts. You can check me out on YouTube. My channel is at chatterbox9.4. Don't forget to like and subscribe and leave your thoughts in the comments section below. You can DM me via social media, and don't forget to tune in and listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, or well, wherever the fuck it is you get your podcast from.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:38

Cheers, thanks.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:40

Yes, yeah, and it was definitely great having you on the show.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:43

Yeah, it was a lot of fun. Yes, check out Murder Coaster. Yes, and all the places he just said.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:49

Yes, check out MurderCoaster Podcast and every single movie television series that we have mentioned on this podcast. It will make you shit in your pants, it'll make you scream. They'll even make your eyes bleed, which is something they tend to do a lot in certain horror films. So until next time, I'm Al Tasir. Stay high on life.