Monthly Spooky | La Llorona, Child Ghosts & Halloween Strange News

Conversation transcript for the September 2022 episode, recovered from its released recording using automatic speech recognition. Separate opening appeals and closing promotional segments are omitted. Automated punctuation restoration was checked to preserve the words. Speaker names are not assigned where turns are uncertain. Not checked word for word by a human against the audio; transcription errors may remain. Dates and references reflect the original recording.

Ghost children are taking lives. A British family goes to McDonald's in a hearse. And as you sleep at night, you're awakened by a wailing woman hoping to drown you too. Get comfortable. Turn off the lights. It's Monthly Spooky. Welcome, my friends, to another edition of Monthly Spooky. I'm your host, Henrique Couto, here with my co-host, Michelle. Michelle, say something for yourself. Um, I don't know.

She's, you know, we're just getting the hang of it. We've only been podcasting together for like two and a half years or something. So she's still working out the kinks. But we're here to bring you a kind of a monthly roundup of all of the spooky comings and goings leading into October, which is, you know, that's the big spooky season. That's the time when all of the things that we enjoy year round become acceptable just for that one month.

Yeah. I remember it's like alcoholics call New Year's Eve amateur night. It's like, oh, you guys are spooky, huh? Do you have a scary podcast you release now twice a week? All year? I might be a little exhausted and I might have drank an iced coffee. Oh, no. It was actually, it was, see, so, you know, I spent a lot of my childhood in New England.

And New England is the birthplace of iced coffee. That's where it's always been acceptable. to drink iced coffee. I remember when I was very, very young, I would talk, I would say something about iced coffee in Ohio and people would be like, what? You're drinking coffee cold. Now they didn't understand any of the nuance, like that iced coffee is full of extra sugar and milk.

And you know, it's, it's more of a, it's more of a sweet treat. It's not really, which is a whole other new England thing, by the way, is sweet, sweet stuff. Like everything is over sugared in new England. Interesting. It's like butter in the South, except it's sugar in new England. That's the thing they're obsessed with that. They add to just about everything.

If you're in new England and you disagree, that's because you're in denial. And I'm sorry that you feel that way, but, but no. So I remember having my first iced coffee when I was like 12 or 13. And then you jump forward eight or nine years later and everybody's drinking iced coffees. McDonald's is selling iced coffees now. So I'm glad that it proliferated.

But no. So when I say I drank an iced coffee, I mean an iced coffee. So like a child coffee. It was like nothing but sweetener and milk and caffeine. Yeah. Those are okay. They're still a little bit too coffee-y for me. I could barely taste the medicine in this one. So I'm not a big caffeine consumer. And as you can tell, neither is Michelle.

Yeah. So, but it helped because I needed to perk up a little bit because as I mentioned, October coming right up. And that means not only spooky season, but very, very busy season for me. For you. Yeah, not for me. We have 11. Is it 11? No, wait, no, no, it's nine. Oh gosh, I almost committed to 11. We have nine episodes of Weekly Spooky, Terrifying and True, and Monthly Spooky coming out on the feed in October.

Of each of them? We have a show every Wednesday and every Monday. Do what? Of each of them? Of each of them each day. Yes. But no, so nine total shows, nine total episodes. And that's the most we've ever published in a month because October is when everybody is ready to get down with the spooky. Which? Uh, are you ready to get down with the spooky Michelle?

Yes, I don't know. Well, speaking of that, you've been looking creeped out. Is everything okay? Oh, I have no idea what's going on next door. I just like keep seeing like people carrying large construction items and I just don't know where they're, what they're doing. Well, it sounds like they're doing construction. I mean, maybe or maybe they're just moving them somewhere in the backyard.

Well, you notice the neighbors, but you haven't even commented on. I'm still it's still a work in progress, but I'm working on the studio, the crypt studio, to make it a little bit more. You know, I don't know, I just you know, it's one of those things like I'll know it when I see it, I'll know when it's done, when it's done.

So I had that pile of of, uh, human heads, severed heads, um, and it just it wasn't like it didn't make the room pop. I mean, I just wouldn't keep severed heads around just because I, if I, they eventually just smell, right. Well, there, yeah, you pump them full of ameldehyde every night before you go to bed. Oh, oh yeah, and then you only have to worry about the smell of ameldehyde.

Oh man, I've been doing it wrong this whole time, so I can't have human heads in my house now. I mean well, not legally or morally, but yes, yes, you can. Okay, you're like dope, All right. Figured it out. But so instead, this time I went with a custom made tapestry I got off of Etsy. I know you've been kind of admiring it because you're an artist yourself.

So it is Dracula, except he's dressed as Elvis and he's blowing the little seed things off of one of those dandelion seed things. Yeah, it's it's really, really sweet. Like, I kind of love it. You know, I love the message. Yes, what is that message, Michelle? Um, break it down, I guess. I mean, the way I kind of took it was that, like that, like spring and love are forever, like vampires, oh okay, that's a nice way to take it.

And elvis? I guess elvis is forever. There's no doubt about it. I was in memphis earlier this year and Elvis is forever. And also I take it as he's not dead, right? Well, no. Yeah. Who said Elvis was dead? I mean, that matters. Oh, I don't know. I don't have any idea. I'm happy with it. I don't know. I mean, I feel like I have to keep it because I had to go with the 30 foot tall version, which was very expensive.

Yeah. I should have just had AI paint me a tapestry. I mean I can, I can make a. I paint you a tapestry, you should. You should punch in the description I just gave into AI and see what it does. Um, uh, um, maybe not during the show, but I'm just writing it down, plus Elvis blowing wish wishes. Okay, if it looks awesome, then we'll make it the artwork for today's show.

So if you were like, what the hell is that thing? That's what that is. But anyway, we've goofed off far too much. We need to get to brass tacks here because people don't listen to the show to hear about brilliant portraits and AI art. They listen to the show to get the spooky news. All right. So the first story we have on this edition of the spooky news- And I want to mention it's like the news is getting ready for Halloween too, because I try to stagger stories, like not have ghost stories back to back to back to back and stuff like that.

But we are ghost heavy. Yeah. There is just so much ghost stuff going on. And no shark stuff this month, unfortunately. I looked. I really looked. And there were no shark stories. This is probably the last month that sharks are going to be like. We're going to have northern hemisphere like shark things because it's getting cooler, so no one's going to be out getting attacked anymore, so they won't have to publish propaganda about how: don't worry about your feet, the sharks just think they're fish, but also they eat fish.

How is that like? It seems so weird. It's like: don't think that they're trying to attack you, they just think your feet are fish. It's like: well, that's still. I'm still getting attacked. Yeah, I still think about that news story. How weird that was that a shark had such good diction. All right. So this story is from Newsweek. Quote, vampire skeleton found pinned to the ground with sickle around neck.

What? Now the word vampire is in quotes because this is a legitimate news source. Okay. The skeleton of a woman buried with a thin metal sickle around her neck, possibly to stop her from returning from the dead, has been found. The research team from the Archaeological Institute of Nicholas Copernicus University Expedition, led by Professor Darius Polinski, discovered the skeleton in a 17th century graveyard in the Polish village of Pien.

An iron sickle was placed around the woman's neck and there was a padlock around her big toe. What? That's the part? Is it the padlock that got you? It's a toe. You can't padlock a toe. Well, I mean, if you don't want anybody to steal it. Some people like value their big toe, Michelle, not like you. No, I mean, you need like one of those like bicycle locks.

You need something that'll like take the toe and lock it to another thing. Personally, I use a club like you use on a steering wheel of a car. I use the club. So no one can move your toe and change the direction. Yeah. I don't like my toe being moved in ways that are unnatural, like side to side. No, sir. This is interesting because I've heard about this stuff, especially, obviously, in Romania, how there are like tombs that had vampires or people they thought might be vampires, which that alone is funny.

It's like they're dead, but they might not be actually. They might just be a vampire. So we're just going to put the stake in their heart after they're already dead. Yeah, just in case. Or that's what we'll write down in the history books. So people don't think we just murdered Tom, which we did. We just murdered Tom. Yeah. We decided he couldn't be a witch.

So we came up with whatever we could right away. In reality, Tom was just really friendly with the wives. So according to Polinsky, the strange burial was performed because the villagers may have thought the woman was undead. Quote: the sickle was not laid flat but placed on the neck in such a way that if the deceased had tried to get up, most likely the head would have been cut off or injured.

Polinsky told the mail online: interesting well, and I've never. I've never heard of this. I've heard of people being buried with like garlic in their mouths. I've heard of people being buried. I mean, the whole concept of the stake through the heart comes from the idea that you're pinning the, the dead, down so that they won't get back up. That's actually where that originally came from, because that became a tradition in- well, let's be real, in eastern europe, where all the weirdos are um to uh stake through the heart once they were in the casket so that they wouldn't rise back up.

That's kind of how that started. And then it got even crazier because vlad the impaler. So then it became all about impaling and stabbing and things like that. So, but I've never heard of a sickle around the neck. But that makes sense, because in the most, most vampire traditions, decapitation is also a way to kill a vampire. So you put a blade around their neck and then I guess they're assuming.

You know what I like about this is: are they assuming that the vampire will just sit up and it'll slice their head off? Or are they assuming the vampire will wake up and be like, ah crap, I can't sit up, and then just like have to be stuck there for all eternity like alone in the dark, like in christopher pike's the last vampire?

I hope that it's the first one, because in the in the second version, it implies that they have no way to like. They're like: I don't even have arms anymore. I can't move this. Yeah, and it says she had arms. Well, it doesn't say it doesn't say she didn't have arms, okay. So, by the way, uh, highly recommend the last vampire series by christopher pike if you want the saddest, most upsetting ending of any book ever.

And I should not have read it in third grade. I wrote a book report on the last vampire in third grade and the only positive thing my teacher said was: wow, because the book was like 800 pages and I read it. Yeah, but, uh, I wrote it. It was an honest report about it. So it was all about vampires and aids and vampires getting aids and oh and yeah, they called.

They called my mom, and my mom did what they, what she always did when they call my mom. She went okay. So yeah, was the report well written? Like I think, if I remember correctly, she was like you should be grateful that my son wanted to read such a long book. That was her response. That book was so trashy. I revisited it like four or five years ago and I was like, wow, not even vaguely appropriate, like not even arguably appropriate.

Like there's just, it's like it's oh man, I mean it's like it was a young adult book and it was inappropriate for young adults. Because it's literally like vampires exist but then aids becomes, uh, more aggressive at spreading. So humans are dying out everywhere. So vampires- and if vampires drink the aids infected blood, they get it. Oh so, so like finding people who don't have aids to drink their blood.

That's like the focus of it. I mean, in this, in this world, can vampires drink like animal blood? I think that if I remember correctly, it's like, yeah, but it's just a stopgap. It doesn't. You can't subsist on it forever. OK. And you need way more of it. Yeah. So, yeah. Last vampire. Great. Great read. Oh, oh. So in the article it says the padlocked big toe also possibly symbolized- quote- the closing of a stage and the impossibility of returning.

Polinsky said: how does that? How is that what that symbolizes? I, I, I guess that you just have to make things up sometimes. Just imagine this polish guy being like: all right, so, uh, I can't do a polish accent, but I'm doing it anyway. I'm just, I'm really messing up today. Uh, all right, so, uh, we'll put the big lock on her toe.

Dude, you just want to use that padlock you accidentally bought, shut up. I like how there's like amazon in that in the 17th century. It's like I didn't mean to get it, but it's too cheap to return. Um, but, yeah, a padlock on your toe. I still don't think that works like that, I think. I think, Michelle, we should get a padlock that could fit on your big toe and you should do a video of you putting it on your toe and showing it off to like music on tick tock, and it'll become a trend.

Everyone all over the world will start putting the padlocks on their toes and then the vampires will finally be vanquished. Oh okay, oh, you thought I didn't have. You thought I didn't have a point, didn't you? Yeah, I kind of thought it wasn't going anywhere, except that I was gonna have to show my feet to like strangers and that was gonna money, yeah, or that there was some like profit involved eventually.

No, this is for the betterment of mankind. I can't believe you thought I was going nowhere with that. I'm a professional podcaster. How dare you think I didn't have a point that I thought of as I was saying it? It's uh, yeah. Vampires and other supernatural creatures have plagued the imaginations of people across Europe for centuries. According to the Scientific American, certain diseases resulting in extreme psychological and behavioral changes like schizophrenia, rabies, and tuberculosis sparked fears in other villagers that the sick person may be dangerous and when they died, may return.

When they were buried, they were often restrained or damaged in some way to prevent them from rising from the grave. Yay. Haven't they been through enough? I know. Villagers? Especially if they had, like, rabies. Like, leave them alone. That's really sad. Have you ever seen the video of a guy with rabies that went viral? No, because I wouldn't be able to do anything ever again if I saw that.

He's literally like he's trying to drink a glass of water and he's like, he's like, can't help but resist it because they become so afraid of water. Yeah. Don't worry. I'm sure he's fine and not definitely dead. I think somebody once survived rabies. It was a, it was a truly chilling video. Anyways, that's too scary for this show. So, quote, ways to protect against the return of the dead include cutting off the head or legs, placing the deceased face down to bite into the ground.

I guess that's just what happens. Burning them and smashing them with a stone. His choice of work. I'm going to hope this is just really bad translation. Because this is such a weird way. Also, it says it doesn't say the ways they understood to protect. It says ways to protect against the return of the dead. Doesn't say ways they understood it's so maybe he's trying to communicate something to us.

Oh man, all I know is I wasn't going to go to poland anyway, but now I'm really not going to poland. Um, okay, fine, if you want to pay, I'll go. Okay, let's go to poland, yay. However, the young woman found in Pien was treated with respect in comparison to women at the time who were accused of having supernatural powers. Quote, she was never ritually murdered, nor she was.

Oh, sorry. Neither. That makes more sense. She was neither ritually murdered, nor was she the one was she one of the convicted in a witchcraft trial. Polinsky told Newsweek, quote, those individuals were treated in a different way. And usually they were thrown into provisional graves, etc. I'm sorry, I read that wrong. Such as at the gallows. I'm not used to EG. So apparently, yeah, she was not hung.

She was not ritualistically killed in any way. But they were worried that she might be a vampire. Huh. I wonder what she was like in life then. I would assume very scary. I was going to say like very flamboyant. That's what I think of when I think of vampires. They're very, pardon the phrasing, devil may care. You know, they're just kind of like, I'll do what I want.

I am a vampire. I can't go out in the sun though. Don't ask. Don't ask. I understand you're a vampire. I'd love to hang out with you. You want to go out in the sun with me? Aww. Aww. That's why you hang out at night. Like, you know. That 14-year-old boy and that vampire. Oh, gosh. I knew Michelle was going to bring up the anime you're watching.

Tell the audience about this vampire anime. No. You got to, because they're looking for the spooky, and that's spooky. Oh, sort of. So there's an anime that at least translated. It's called Call of the Night, about this 14 year old boy who has insomnia and he's just like wandering around the streets at night because it's cool- when you're a kid to wander around the streets at night because it's interesting- and he meets a vampire.

And then they become friends and they hang out and he wants to be a vampire too, because he thinks growing up and being an adult or even being or even going to school is like horrible, which I understand, and but the only way he can be a vampire is if he falls in love with a vampire. Like that's the only way you can.

If you're bitten, that's how you're like sired, basically okay, but he can't fall in love with people. So he's working really hard to fall in love with this vampire so he can turn into a vampire. Yeah, that's an interesting takeoff from the fact that vampirism was originally the story of dracula and stuff was kind of really just an STD story. Interesting. That's interesting.

Sorry. So what's the name of that anime? Call of the night. Call of the night. So if you like anime, check out call of the night. Michelle, is it a thumbs up? I like it. So it's good. I like it. That's the best we're going to get folks. So check that out. If you like anime, I knew you were going to bring it up eventually.

I'm sorry, No, no, no, it's okay. One hypothesis that Polinsky and his team have about the woman Is that the locals may have feared her revenge. Quote: It is possible that in her lifetime The woman experienced a tragedy or was harmed. On the other hand, her appearance or behavior Might have provoked the contemporary residents to be afraid of her, But this may only be proved by more research on the skeleton.

He said. How's the skeleton? Oh, maybe he. See, again, I think this is a bad translation. I think he meant on the person. Because I don't think he meant like we're going to dust around and like examine the skeleton to find out if she was like not nice. Well, I mean, maybe they can see if she had any like deformalities or something that would cause people to be scared of her.

See these markings on the rip, Michelle. These suggest that she was very rude at the grocery store. Well, yeah, because she, yeah. Archaeology at its best. Quote, the 17th century was an era when people believed in vampires and other creatures. In the case of this enigmatical grave in Pien, there are more questions than answers. More studies, however, may help to identify the cause of this young woman's death.

Other skeletons buried in a similar way have been found previously in poland. In 2015, archaeologists discovered five skeletons with sickles around their necks in a cemetery in drosko, around 150 miles away from pn. In four of these skeletons, the sickles were placed on the throats of the bodies and up against the pelvis of a fifth. I guess they were like: well, that see, that's smart, putting it around the pelvis, that's.

You know, they're really gonna have trouble getting up. Yeah, don't have those arms anymore. No more arms. Vampires don't have arms. You need to. You know, get caught up on your folklore. Oh, geez, Michelle. Burials that are marked by the inclusion of unusual items or where the bodies have been placed in peculiar positions, particularly where they have been mutilated or dismembered, are often viewed as evidence for anti-vampiric practices or simply, as the graves of- quote vampires, said the authors of a 2015 paper published in the journal antiquity, antiquity.

So, uh, yeah, that's a, that's a wamp here. Yeah, I gotta say, though, I'm looking at the- uh, the skeleton- beautiful teeth, but no fangs, maybe. Maybe when you kill them, the fangs go away. I mean, that's, that's one of those classic tropes I always appreciate, like, oh, you shot the werewolf with the silver bullet. Well, now he's just a guy with a silver bullet in his chest.

Great job, yeah, explain that to the cops. Uh, he was a werewolf. I swear he really was. It's like: oh, and the werewolf was sleeping with your wife. Yes, it was horrible, and my wife is probably a werewolf too. Will see next full moon. Um, so this next article is from mirror.co. Uk, oh woman, spooked as walls start leaking- quote blood, with some convinced it's ghosts or mushrooms, or mushrooms, yeah, like psychedelic mushrooms, or or you mean, like what do you what?

What, what do you mean? Let's, let's Listen to this, to the article, and then I'll tell you my theory. Okay. Oh, God, Michelle has theories. A woman was left creeped out after she discovered her bathroom walls were leaking a strange red liquid that people online are convinced must be blood. With some saying it must be the work of ghosts. Lexi chidester, 30 years old, first noticed the liquid trickling down her wall when it appeared next to her bathroom cabinet and trailed over the nearby plug sockets.

And while she, oh yeah, this is, you need to go and inspect this place. Yeah, inspect this place. And while let's see, uh, and while she initially dismissed the bizarre finding as a stain made by her- quote- messy brother, the woman became more concerned the following day when the red mark doubled in size, making the wall look as though it was bleeding.

Wow, I'm looking at the photos. It does look kind of like blood. Also, this is clearly one of those news stories that's just from a tiktok. Oh, like, she definitely posted this on tiktok, which is probably why you're going to see the bleeding walls challenge coming really soon. Yeah, make your balls bleed, I guess. Yeah, after you cook your chicken. And uh, nyquil chicken.

I don't even know what the. I just don't know what you're accomplishing doing it like. Did you watch the video of nyquil chicken? No, no, I saw a picture, though, so I was like: yay, yay, well, nyquil chicken. I watched the video of the guy preparing it and it's clearly a troll video, like, very clearly, because the guy is just like: hey guys, what's up?

I just want to show you guys my nyquil chicken recipe because I figured you guys you know you've been asking about it. So here it goes and then he just does it, but he never acts like it's weird or like it's odd. He acts like it's just a normal thing to cook chicken. And nyquil- and that's why I think it went viral initially- was just that it was very funny, yeah, yeah.

And then tiktok did what tiktok does and people started copying it. All right. Baffled by what she was seeing, Lexi took to her Instagram account and shared a video of her wall. Oh, I'm sorry. It's on. This is an Instagram series. I apologize. I apologize to Lexi and her family for suggesting she was TikTok viral when she was Instagram viral. Yeah. I mean, I think.

I think you upgraded her, actually, but that's OK. You think TikTok is better than Instagram? I think at this point, maybe. I mean, I'm just saying, like, I just think Instagram may not be more popular, but I feel like it's less like TikTok. I guess. And shared a video of her wall, which has since been viewed over 6.2 million times. With commenters telling her it's time to move as her house must be haunted.

One person. This is great article writing. One person said: time to move. Yes, yes, yes. As another added quote: you need to leave. Satan is coming for you, oh, but he misses you. He wants to be your friend. Uh, after uh posting the viral clip, lexi made it her mission to discover exactly what was happening to her bathroom and even ordered an at-home mold test kit to make sure the red liquid wasn't a health concern.

Is that what your theory was? Similar, but I mean, if she did the mold test, like, I don't know if it would work based on my theory, but yes, maybe. Is it time to share your theory? Are you waiting? I'm waiting. Okay. Bide your time. It's all good. The college counselor from California, the college counselor from California, U S said, quote, I filmed the ghost or I filmed the video to get someone's opinion on what it was and what to do because I didn't understand what it was.

I spoke with a plumber who talked me through what I was looking for in the pipe system. If it was a leak, I climbed into the attic and looked for similar colored goo or wet areas. I got an at-home mold kit to test for mold. There was a discussion of cutting into the wall, but that was the absolute last resort. I am not a handy person to know how to fix leaks, cut into walls, and check house wiring.

After talking with my family and ruling out everything it couldn't be using deductive reasoning, the only place really unexplored more closely was the cabinet itself. It was the only thing that made sense. There weren't pipes in that wall. The wood wasn't bleeding, that same liquid. There was no trace of it in the wood frame. The attic was dry. The cabinet was the only place that made sense.

My brother got pliers and helped me pull the metal back to see if there was anything under where the sheet metal overlapped. Thankfully for now, we're about to be solved. Do you want to give your theory first? I don't think it's right anymore. Yeah, no. But I can give it if you want. Come on, give us your theory. So I was thinking sometimes mushrooms and other plants have what they what's called.

I don't know how to pronounce it, but like guttation where they like give off liquids come out of them. And sometimes they're kind of brown. So I would think in a bathroom, maybe there's some excess moisture and there's some mushrooms and they're kind of like leaking and you just didn't see him yet. What a delicious problem to have. Yeah, not yum, yeah, or also um.

The other thing is, sometimes, if there's that much moisture, like the paint, maybe kind of um, you know, get in bed and running and then maybe the color is a little different. Okay, I'm done. Professional home inspector. Michelle adler, you should be quoted in articles like these, maybe once. Once. Monthly Spooky becomes more ubiquitous places like mirror.co.uk will contact you when houses are doing weird things.

Certified home inspector Michelle Adler said this. I don't know what it was. I mean, the bar isn't that high on paranormal news articles as much as I enjoy reading them. Some of them are a little rough. One of them that we're going to be reading this week is written as a poem. Oh, that's confusing. I agree. Thankfully for Lexi, the mystery was solved when several commenters on her Instagram video told her that they had experienced similar issues with their walls and the root problem was rust, not blood.

Oh yeah, she added quote: it was explained to me that condensation mixed with years of rust and no ventilation- my bathroom doesn't have a fan- can cause rust in cold metal to liquefy something I did not know about before all this. Oh. I didn't know about that either. You didn't know that rust sometimes... Liquifies? Well, I think what that meant was just that, like, water on rust would cause the rust to...

Water would come, and then, you know... So, we're not all certified home inspectors. Michelle. That's okay. And although the quote blood has been explained by science, some people online aren't happy with the sensible answer as they're still convinced something supernatural is going on. So, so it was rust water. Oh man. Someone commented on Instagram quote, still doesn't rule out ghosts as someone else said, well, I'm sticking around.

Now we need to know if your bedroom is haunted. I, you know, I think it was ghosts that poorly designed the plumbing in that house. You mean that that made it so, well, I mean, they're probably dead. So yeah, maybe they are ghosts. That's what they should ask. They should be like, how old is the house? Also, does it ask you to get out?

I thought that was normal. Uh, oh, we need to have a talk about your house sometime, Michelle. You know, because everyone always tells me to get out and so my house tells me to get out and I'm just like, eh, alright, we're going to be right back after this quick break, we're going to have a word from our sponsors and we'll be back with even more spooky news.

Now, this news story. I have never seen a news story quite like this one, Michelle, but it comes from your favorite source, NPR. Oh, no. This is from NPR.org. Sorry. It says, an Ice Age bison was discovered, then soon eaten once the foul taste was smothered. What? Yeah, this is so. So this is not like actually recent news, but kind of um.

In 1979, researchers unearthed the mummified body of a 55 000 year old step bison in the alaskan tundra shortly after they sliced off a piece of its neck to eat. Yeah, now here's the best part. It says: here's a news story told in rhyme. This is not a traditional story- not many names or dates, so don't worry. It's also not incredibly timely, but it's about an ice age step bison and a man whose thought process defies me.

NPR, maybe you need to stick to the news. It's the news. Let's start with the creature lived more than 55,000 years ago, was brought to his knees by a lion ancestor foe. What? You know. Down went the bison on permafrost ground, which kept him from being eaten or found. Neither predator nor man disturbed the behemoth mass as it remained encased in a protective frozen glass.

Leaping forward to 1979, a team of explorers venture out to mine. Gold is what they are on the lookout for on the spot where the bison hit the floor. Some of the rhymes are really good and then others hurt my feelings. Well, you know, it's hard to do good rhymes. So I think the problem here is like, that would be the defense.

It'd be like, Hey, you try doing a better job. And all I'm thinking is like, who asked you to write this news story in a rhyme? I assume someone like, they were like, Hey, let's do a better job. Write this in a rhyme. Hey, you know what the kids these days love? Sea shanties. So write this in rhyme. Um. With a hydraulic mining hose they melted away some frozen sludge till someone said: whoa, stop, hey.

They reported their findings to university of alaska fairbanks officials, dale guthrie led the excavation, limiting interstitials, the skeleton, the skin, the muscles, all in near impeccable condition. Guthrie named it blue babe, then sliced off a piece for a culinary mission. Wow. It's in rhyme. Yeah. You know what we can do, he asked. Host a dinner party, and with cooking the meat, I'll be tasked.

The blue babe neck steak, served eight with veggies and spices and lots of booze. They ate years later. Writing about the taste, guthrie said when thawed one could mistake the aroma for beef- not unpleasantly earthy, but once in the mouth his wife, mary lee guthrie, told podcasters from gimlet it was worse than beef jerky. Okay, I mean, that's not its fault, that's the person who cooked it.

I blame the, I blame the buffalo, the bison, I blame it, the step bison, the step bison. I mean, it's not a full, it's not your full bison, it's only a bison by marriage. Yeah, exactly, still, it was a great party. She fondly remembered a dreamy symbolism, symbolism of the meal that endured, remembered and endured don't rhyme. Maybe you have to say remember differently, remembered, endured.

Yeah, It was a feast, by all accounts, a true celebration and imagining of the human experience on earth. She said with elation. What? That's over. It's over. Thank God. I skimmed reading that ahead of time and it was, it was really, it was bad. I wonder how sick they got. They didn't mention, I'm surprised, I guess they couldn't find any rhymes for diarrhea.

So they just had to leave that part out. I really don't understand. Like, why would you eat part of it? Like. I mean, you got to remember in 1979, I mean, there wasn't that much good stuff on TV, I guess. So they were like, well, I want to eat ancient bison. That's true. But I mean, I think. I don't know. You wouldn't want to eat any bison, that's true, but I especially.

Well, actually I mean it. It died naturally. Oh, are you saying you would be willing to eat meat as long as it's strictly natural causes only, like not really, but sort of, but not really. Imagine how expensive it would be to run the natural causes farm. Yeah, the cows like, how long do cows live, like naturally? How long do cows live? I want to know right now.

Over 20 years? Yeah, that would be very expensive steak, but not only that, but like I don't think old animals like taste really good. Quote Michelle on that. That's the new t-shirt. So, speaking of t-shirts, before we move on, I want to mention real quick, if you're listening to this and you want to show us a little bit of support, there are two major ways to do that.

One is to go to weekly. Well, they're both to go to Weekly Spooky.com you can click on shop and buy yourself a t-shirt including a soon to be launched Monthly Spooky t-shirt that has that cool illustration you did of us right on the front. The other way you can support us is to head over to Patreon, which is at Weekly Spooky.com. Just click on Patreon for as little as $1 a month.

You can help us keep the show going and going and going. We're at 89 backers right now. And I would love to see 100 by the end of the year. So if you enjoy the show for as little as $1 a month, you get bonus episodes. I do a bonus episode of Weekly Spooky every month where I read a creepypasta which I enjoy quite a bit.

It's actually just an excuse for me to kick back in the dark room and read creepy pastas, but it's, it's a lot of fun and I really appreciate the support. And because this just happened, I want to mention if you are a person who enjoys horror television and enjoys owning physical media of your, your media, you can check out henflix.com H E N F L I X.com.

I have a brand new television series that I created and directed two episodes of called found footage, the series. And right now it's not streaming anywhere. So if you want to see it and support it directly, you can buy yourself a copy signed by me at henflix.com. So I just want to get those plugs out of the way because it is the spooky season and, uh, they're shipping as of October 4th.

So on October 4th, they'll be on their way to you. They'll definitely get to you in time for Halloween. So, uh, blue babe, goodbye. this next story is from mirror.co. Uk, inside creepy mansion haunted by children who died in tragic circumstances. They're dead. I mean, I assume that they're dead and that they're alive. Children, oh dear. A dreary, crumbling mansion worthy of appearing in any haunted house film was originally painted a bright pink, complimented by rose trimming.

Winderborn Mansion in a rural part of Maryland in the United States was built in 1884 by a very wealthy couple who occupied it with their three children. Enoch Toten was a lawyer. That's a great name. Enoch Toten. Yeah. That's a great name. It also sounds like you're trying really hard to get phlegm out of your throat. Yeah. Enoch Toten was a lawyer in Washington as well as a veteran from the civil war 20 years previously who had been shot four times during it.

Wow, so he was like the 50 cent of civil war era. Yeah, I guess he was shot four times and lived. Uh, his wife mary had acquired a lot of money through her father, senator timothy howe, who happened to be heir and cousin of elias how, inventor of the modern sewing machine. In fact, Elias is Bobbin Bobbin. Winder was the inspiration behind the mansion's name.

Well, there are photos of the inside of the mansion now, and it's got some epic graffiti. Oh, some really epic graffiti. Wow. And it's not abandoned either. It's technically owned by somebody. They just don't take care of it. That's not any better. And inside the house, it's just full of garbage. Yeah, just tons and tons- like you can't see the floor- just tons of garbage.

Um, wow, the family wanted a summer house to escape the hustle and heat of the city. I know, when I think of escaping heat, I think maryland. Oh, me too. Yeah, that's what I think. Uh, then now this says abandoned, but then the quote says the property is still under ownership, but it does not stop people from entering it. I guess when they say abandoned, we'll just, we'll just pretend that they mean as in no one lives there.

Not that it doesn't have an owner, but that's not what abandoned means. It's what they think abandoned means. I know I had this, uh this conversation a while back. A friend of mine posted about how, like, if you go into an abandoned house, uh, to explore it, and then you take things, you're stealing because this that you know like they're going to do something with a house one day.

And I was like, well, then it's not abandoned. If somebody owns it, then you, it's just theft, yeah, but if it's an actual abandoned house, you can take anything you want. No one owns it, yeah, yeah, uh, that just drives me crazy. It's like, um, I was watching these videos. Uh, I like to watch to unwind. I like to watch fail compilations, you know, people doing silly things or whatever, and some of them have voiceovers that are really poorly written.

Okay, and my favorite is the, the constant incorrect use of the term decimated. Oh, this storm decimated this garage of classic cars and like, wow, it destroyed 10 of the. That's what decimated means. It means a decimal point, decimated anyway. Maybe I might have mischaracterized it, but yeah, it's a decimal point, it's what decimated means. Anyway, I'm getting, I'm getting really in the weeds.

I have I've had a very stressful month. I know um a good month, but like tons of work, um, uh, my dog, chicano, had cancer surgery this month. He's doing well, the surgery was a success, but it was very stressful. And then, after all of the two weeks of him suffering with the, the giant stitches and his cone on, he got an ear infection.

And then, poor buddy, and then he, uh, and then the ear infection meant we had to give him steroids and instead of the steroids making him big and buff, they just made him pee on the carpet. A lot, poor guy, yeah, so literally yesterday was the last time he had to take steroids. Oh great, so, yeah, so it's over. So you know what?

Now that I'm saying it- I don't you know- I take back my apology for being tired. Yeah, I have every right to be. This was the most exhausting month ever and it was my birthday month. Like everything was something. Yeah, yeah, so, uh, that's why I want to sit down with my old friend Michelle while she smells her microphone- and, uh, I'm not smelling it, I'm just resting on it because I'm cold.

Yeah, we had a big fall cold snap. Both of us did. Yeah, uh, like on what? I saw a meme that said in uh, because on, because we had. On wednesday it was in the high 80s and then thursday it was in the low 60. It was like, yeah, it was in the low 60s, and somebody said, man, this weather went from 85 to 65, like it saw a state trooper.

So, yeah, it's, it's much colder. Um, yeah, yeah, much colder. So I guess it makes sense. First day of fall, it just like jacked it up. Yeah, yeah, I appreciate it. The now abandoned property that isn't abandoned had a glowing start, with all year-round gardeners employed due to the couple's passion for the outdoors, and imported exotic plants dotted around the 9.3 acre land.

However, life began to darken when the Totens' three children all contracted typhoid fever, a prevalent disease in the 19th century often caused by drinking contaminated water. One of them died from the illness, with many locals believing that the child's spirit still haunts the Victorian-era house. I? I hope not. That sounds sad. You know, it's like last week when we were reading about that, that that um tomb that was for rich people out in barbados, I believe it was.

Yeah, and it's like: yeah, you know, being rich wasn't always the best thing ever in the past either. Uh, one of them died from the illness with many, oh sorry, uh. More tragedy struck the family. That's the money, that's the money line. More tragedy struck the family after one of the daughters, Edith Toten, grew up and had a child herself. She became a doctor and adopted a child, but the little girl died after sliding down and falling off the mansion's banister, which only fueled the rumor that the mansion was haunted by children.

I mean, I guess that makes sense because it was only one child. Now it's two children. I don't know. Keep going. Yeah. They're forming up. They're like gathering together. Yeah. Yeah. Edith is said to have, quote, dropped dead at the age of 48 while delivering a lecture at a university in nearby Baltimore. OK, so she didn't die in the house because she wasn't a child.

Now I get it. Yeah. Winterbourne Mansion changed ownership in 1929 to Edward and Beulah Pickerel and was occupied until 2004 when their son, Edward Pickerel Jr., died. OK, that's 2004. The curse returns the children. You know, did they mention that they read from like a book they found in the walls and then, all of a sudden, the child deaths start again. But that's rough.

That's 2004, that's recent. Yeah, um, like you know, he didn't get- they didn't get- typhoid fever. You know, like man, um, since then, the home has been left alone to gather dust and some of its windows are smashed and boarded up, adding to its creepy factor. Edward's brother is trying to sell it and the last known sales price was $895,000 in 2016.

Seems like a lot of money for that beat up house. Yeah. But it is a big lot. How big? 9.6 acres. Oh, okay. Because I was going to say I'll take it for like $1,000. You heard him. You heard him, Edward's brother who they didn't publish the name of. I don't have any kids, so we're all good. Big whoop. If anything, watch.

No, but you see, then it'll become a sitcom and you'll be like, I never want kids. And then you end up having to raise these ghost children. You're just like, but it's like a sitcom. So eventually you realize that you couldn't imagine your life without them now. Exactly. But they'll never get older. Yeah. You're like, I don't want to admit it, but they give me purpose.

They make me happy. I send them to ghost school and show them ghost anime. That's how you exercise them is you just give them, you show them anime until they leave. Yeah. They're just like, this is weird. This is really weird. Despite no one being allowed inside the Gothic looking home, it has not stopped the curious from entering and spraying the interiors with graffiti amid all the dusty clothes, furniture and magazines strewn around.

Honestly, the place looks a lot rougher than I would expect for 2004. I thought it had been abandoned more like in the 90s or 80s. Well, that is almost 20 years. Neither you nor me nor our mostly millennial audience and Gen X audience needs to hear that, Michelle. Okay. You're closer to death. So spooky. Well, while outside old vintage cars. What? Wow.

There are old vintage vintage cars just on the property. They could just sell those. They know that, right? I would think it says while outside old vintage cars lay among overgrown vegetation and plenty of no trespassing signs to ward off interlopers. Yeah. And they're doing a great job. So. Yeah. So that's a really sad story. Yeah. But it is a bit of a stretch to be like, it's haunted by ghosts of children because a child died.

And then like five years later, a child died. And then like 80 years later, a child died. Yeah. It's a little bit of a stretch, but it's a cool looking house. You would like it. I feel really bad for it, you know? Well, I mean, your offer's out there. It's in the ether. Okay. $1,000. Does that, do you, does that, is that contingent on getting the classic cars?

Are you willing to let them take those? No, I'm taking the classic. You know, they had all this time to just sell them. Used cars prices are way, way up. This is the time. That's true. So if you haven't done it by now, then they're mine. And I'm going to sell them or something or make them all better. And then sell them.

Well, I misspoke earlier. There is a shark on this episode and it's Michelle. Geez. Remind me never. Remind me never to negotiate with you. Oh, my God. Your, your, uh, your ancestral homeland of the bronx came out just then. Look at all that time in the world. All right, move on, take my offer, don't? Yeah, ghostbusters, what do you want? So we've got another ghost ish story, but this one is pertinent because the new uh adams family series Wednesday will be releasing soon.

I don't, I heard that it's not releasing in October on Netflix though. That's sad. It is. I would agree. But we have this story, another from mirror.co.uk Meet the real life Addams family who have a ghost child and drive a hearse to Tesco. So. Yeah. So these are just white people that, these are just white people that are like, they have a hearse.

It's a nice hearse though. Well, I mean, hearses are nice. But it looks modern is what I mean. Like, I never see a new hearse. You know what I mean? Like, not in a person who doesn't, though they probably actually own a funeral home. If they actually own a funeral home, I am calling BS on this article. Oh, totally. Yeah. Because, yeah, because like, hearses are not very expensive to buy used because they tend to not get high mileage, you know, and they tend to be well maintained.

So, but this hearse looks like really new and it's got leather interior. Oh, sorry, I'm just going to talk about. I'm going to talk about the this one photo of inside this hearse for the next 20 minutes. So get a snack or something. Popular television characters- the adams family- are often associated with all things spooky and ghoulish, but their lives are purely fiction, or are they?

Well? I mean, yes, one family from cheshire have been dubbed the real life adams family after sharing their unique hobby of ghost hunting and their penchant for driving around in a hearse. John paul, kenny, kimmy, kimmy jeffrey and their two daughters, snow, nine years old, and pebble six. Their kids are named snow and pebble. Snow is a better name than pebble. I would say snow is definitely a better name than pebble.

Yeah, yeah, I, I like snow as a name, but pebble. I don't know about that one. Um, you know, it just doesn't work in english, like you know, because, uh, like spanish names, some of them are just just words. Like I had a. I knew a guy named mono. That was his first name. His name is hand, yeah, but it's a cool name, mono, it sounds, sounds cool, but his name is hand.

But pebble just doesn't work for me, I'm sorry. Um, uh, don't exactly. They don't exactly look like the eccentric adams family, but the four have had a keen interest in the afterlife ever since mom kimmy was gifted tickets to a ghost tour by her teacher husband, the 37 year old from middle, which cheshire, was skeptical at first, but after finding the experience fascinating she was, she hasn't looked back since and even going on to set up her own ghost hunting events.

She explained, quote: we loved it so much we decided to set up our own and offer ghost hunting experiences for people as well as doing it as a family with our young daughters. See, that's messed up. Why not offer a ghost hunting experience for dogs or cats or rabbits, or at least make it open to them in case they also want to come.

Yeah, really? Yeah. Representation matters. Yeah. Quote, I was so skeptical. I was so skeptical at first, I didn't really know what to expect. Being a therapist, I am quite a logical thinker and I always want to try and debunk our findings, but sometimes there just isn't a logical explanation. They really do blow our mind sometime. Sometimes. Oh, they just showed a picture of the exterior of the hearse.

It is brand new. And it looks weird, but I think that's because it's it's in England. The photo is of the hearse going through the drive-thru at McDonald's. That's perfect. I love that so much. I adore that. But the hearse does look weird. It has like really really tall ceiling, like the roof is really really tall, so the windows are like really tall.

It just looks odd unless the photo. No, it's not the photograph, because the people look normal inside, in keeping with their spooky hobby. Parents, john paul and kimmy, splashed out the cash. Splashed out the cash on a second family car, a hearse, which they have nicknamed morticia. The pair, who met whilst working in a school, enjoy taking the car out for a spin and even drive it to tesco and the pub, which is what has caused them to become known as the adams family.

We initially thought the hearse would be the best way to advertise our business, but we love it and use it as a family car. I mean, it makes sense. It has lots of room for, yeah, bodies and there's no law that says they have to be dead. Yeah, exactly, yeah, we get a good response when we're out in it. People always stop to look and take photos.

We've been to a few places in it. When it got when it, when I go out to- uh, I got out of it in tesco car park- you could see people's heads turning. We're all. We've also gone to the pub in it too, although it does take up to two parking spaces, yeah. However, I don't think we could take it to work.

I don't think the head teacher would be too pleased. Well, just take it to work. Come on, just take it to work. Be tough, yeah. The younger members of the family have recently got involved in the ghostly hobby, with john paul claiming their eldest. Snow can see ghosts and often draws them. I drew plenty of ghosts when I was a kid and I never saw any ghosts.

Did you claim to see them? Um, no, but then again, the internet wasn't a thing, so I didn't. I didn't. There was no clout to chase yet. Um, uh. He described his daughter's abilities as- a quote- real superpower, as she often spots several supernatural beings and is now branded snow Wednesday Adams. Are the, if you're listening to this and you're in England and I know we have listeners in England, are the English really that unclever or is this just an unfair representation?

I also want to know, like, I mean, I know this sounds, this is kind of a weird family. Like they have a hearse and whatever, and they like ghost hunting, but like, is this like that weird for you guys? Cause this isn't really that weird. No, it really isn't. He explained, when we took Snow and Pebble to their first ghost hunting adventure, Snow first saw a soldier type figure with a round head and a woman holding hands with a little girl.

Do people not often have round heads? I don't know what that means. I'm guessing maybe it means it was tubby. Or baby faced, you know what I mean? Like a round head. Quote, we know it is quite controversial taking your kids ghost hunting. is it? Yeah, because ghost hunters are so often known to die while they're doing it. I'm pretty sure ghost hunting, I'm sorry, I'm not a big ghost hunting person.

I'm pretty sure ghost hunting is mostly going, hello? Hello? What was that? What the hell was that? So anyway, I don't see how that would hurt a child. I guess saying hell in front of them is, you know, it's a little... You could just say hi. Hi. People quote, uh, people think of ghosts as being something scary, but it really isn't. At first we were a little worried what people would say, but we've had nothing but a positive response so far after launching the business.

People think it's really cool. So they're, uh, they're basically running a business. The business is called the occult hauntings. In case you want to check it out in the united kingdom, I'll give them a plug, since they gave us some content to laugh at and we kind of insulted them. Um, so we have time for one more and I'm trying to decide.

I want your help, Michelle. Do we do, uh, the conjuring the, the woman who sleeps at the house, that the conjuring is based on A haunted sanatorium or an old asylum where 9,000 patients died. Oh, that's a lot of, but they, yeah, but they die. People die all the time. That's the next Michelle shirt. People die all the time. And I like it.

That's the Michelle shirt. Which one is closest in location to either of us? They're all, well, the Conjuring house, because everything else I believe is in the United Kingdom. Okay, then let's do that. All right. This story comes from Newsweek. Woman who sleeps in The Conjuring House reveals what it's really like. So for those who don't know, The Conjuring is a movie series that I actually really enjoy.

Have you seen any of The Conjuring movies? No. Really? I don't think so. I think you'd enjoy them. They're fun. I mean, they're, you know, that kind of modern ghost story thing. I like it. A worker at the real life The Conjuring house shared what her average morning is like after she spends the night at the infamous haunted house. So she's a worker there.

So I'm guessing this house is a business. Yeah. Makes sense since it's famous. Most people get that dreaded feeling the night before work. But Madison Heisen, for Madison Heisen, that feeling is likely at the extreme. Heinzen works at the real life home that inspired the Conjuring movies and her family used to own the place. Now she still works there as part of the house's operations, staying on the property for one week per month, during which she helps run tours and events for visitors.

Okay. The home, I like how they have pictures of her like swiffering the floor. I like, I like the idea of like, here's the mundane truth of a haunted house. Yeah. Yeah. The home gained fame in the 1970s when the Perron family moved in and consequently claimed to suffer intense paranormal activity that later acted as the inspiration for a book series written by one of the family's children.

Despite taking the form of a normal day in the life video with uplifting instrumental music, Heinzen's day at work is far from normal. She wakes up after sleeping alone in the house and explained that the first thing she does is check the security cameras before making her way through the house. A ouija board can be seen decorating the living room above the bed.

Heinzen said she greets the entire house every morning, likely praying. She doesn't get greeted back by any voices. I mean, that's how I am every day, though. I'm always hoping I don't get greeted back by any, you know, demonic voices or anything- me too, but to avoid it, I don't say hi just constantly in every room of the house. You don't? No, no wonder your house hates you.

Oh, you're not polite. I just thought it. We like, we're. It's not like I went away. I'm still there. I don't have to greet it again. Right, this is the big difference, because you're a coastal person and I'm midwestern, yeah, so I say hi to every room of my house, yeah, and when you walk past the room, you also say hi again.

Yeah, of course. Oh well, no, you don't just say hi, You say how's your day? Oh, you don't, you don't just say hi. Hi is the start of the day. Then you follow up. You, you just like walk into a room and you go, I'm walking here. I'm walking. I want to mention, cause it mentioned, it said that the conjuring books were written by one of the children.

So I made a movie called Amityville, no escape, which is loosely based on the Amityville haunting. And I just wanted to mention that one of the kids who was in the, that lived in the house when he was a child. I'm not going to name him because, you know, but he totally sent me death threats. Wow. He's notoriously insane. He sent me death threats for making the movie.

Wow. So that's my experience in the world of haunted houses. Jeez. Oh, yeah. He sent me death threats and then he tried. He like tagged me in a bunch of stuff on Facebook. I had to block him on Facebook. I've blocked five people on Facebook in my life. And one of them is that guy. I don't think I knew this. Oh man.

It was kind of scary at the time. Cause he was just like, yeah, he, I mean, I can't repeat any of it here. Cause it was really like offensive stuff. Lots of, uh, like calling me a homosexual in like really unpleasant ways and saying he was going to send people to get me and Ohio's not that far away. And, and I didn't reply.

I just blocked him. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing to do. Yeah. It's, it's the way to go. Oh, it's fine. It's fine. Anyway, quote, I don't know why it's something that I've always done. She said, Heinz and then goes on to clean the entire house, replacing bed sheets and mopping the floors for the visitors ahead. The beds and rooms they belong to look straight from the movies, even featuring old bears and dolls on each bed.

I'm assuming it means teddy bears and not like just elderly, like black bears. Yeah. A quick inventory check of the house's merchandise takes place before waiting for the arrival of visitors wanting a tour of the infamous home. Heinzen and her family have owned the home since 2019, but put it back on the market last year at 1.2 million. Yeah, last year was a good time to do that, to sell your haunted house.

Yeah. Her father has worked as a paranormal investigator. for over a decade and Heinzen has been on hand to help since the age of 13. Quote, My family has always been interested in the paranormal and my dad has been a ghost hunter, or as we like to say, paranormal investigator, for over 10 years. I started joining him on investigations as young as 13 years old.

When we saw the house was for sale a few years ago, my parents took the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to allow enthusiasts and paranormal investigators to visit the infamous home, she told Newsweek. The three bedroom and one and a half bathroom home is located in Rhode Island, so I just want to mention she's like they took the opportunity to start a hopefully thriving business.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, but it is cool, I mean I would, if I lived in Rhode Island or lived near Rhode Island, I would totally go just for the heck of it. One that's like, that's like a great way to to kill a Saturday. You know, get some coffee milk. Uh, you know, have a lobster roll and then, uh, go see the conjuring house.

So, um, let's see this last part. The basement, as reported by newsweek last year, appeared relatively untouched, with an infamous well room used by the original owners for their main supply of water. Oh, okay, like a real well. Yeah, quote. When I'm there monthly to help take care of the property, I set up a few interactive live streams for my fans to investigate the home with me and to communicate with the spirits there.

Heinzen told newsweek. So sounds, That's kind of cool. Apparently she has a TikTok that's very popular where she TikToks from the haunted house. So, Michelle, we're going to go to a break real quick, but I want to let people know what we're going to be talking about is La Llorona. Yay. The weeping woman of Mexican folklore. We're going to talk all about that and my personal experience with La Llorona after these messages from our sponsors.

Michelle. Um, yes. I like how you're surprised I'm talking to you. Like you're on the show with me. Oh. Did you have any ghost stories when you were a kid? Did your parents ever tell you scary stories? Um, I don't. I don't think so. Not that much, really. See, you missed out. Yeah, I know. They didn't even tell you about the Gollum?

No. That's the one really cool Jewish folklore thing is the Gollum. So when I was a kid, I grew up what I would call Mexican adjacent. My stepfather was Mexican. So I got a lot of really interesting influences. And the one that I always remembered was La Llorona. Do you know much about La Llorona? Um, I mean, I think, I think I know a little bit and I also know that it starts with two l's that are y.

Yes, that is spanish, yes, that's spanish. I mean, you can call it la lorona if you want. I don't good, why would I want to do that? I remember explaining to my buddy dave, over and over, how to pronounce it when that movie, the curse of la llorona, came out. I was like sitting there, I was like Llorona. He was like, Urania.

I'm picking on Dave because I'm a jerk. Uranema? What? Because I'm just mean. No, La Llorona is a story about, well, I've never researched La Llorona. I only know what I was told as a little boy. So I'm going to tell you roughly what I remember being told as a little boy. And then we can dive in and look at, of course, the most reputable source for information, which is Wikipedia.

And we'll learn a little bit more about La Llorona. So I guess the first thing to start with is very simply, there was this woman lived in Mexico. At least that's the version I heard. I'm going to stop saying this is the version I heard. So this is my final warning. This is the version I recall being told when I was six years old.

It's probably totally wrong, and it was also tailored to me, because the point of this story is to scare the ever-loving bejesus out of a child so that they stay in bed all night and don't bother you, yeah, which is you know like I love that. So there was this woman who lived in mexico and she was married and she had two boys- note, two boys, because I was a little boy- two boys with her husband.

So one day her husband starts cheating on her and she finds out and in her rage she goes to a river with their children and drowns both of them in a rage to spite her husband, who's leaving her for this other woman. That's mean. Well, the moment after she's drowned the child, or both children, she immediately realizes what she's done and begins wailing, crying.

It'd be awesome if it was wailing like she went out with a harpoon and was like I'm getting, you know, I'm getting that blubber. But she starts. She starts whining and crying. La llorona is also known as the weeping woman or the wailing woman. So she starts crying about what she's done and realizing that that was not okay to do despite her husband because now she has no more children.

So she throws herself into the water and drowns herself. Now, this is where the scary story, the scary part when I was a kid starts. So now, La Llorona wanders the earth singing her songs and crying her tears. And if you hear La Llorona late at night, you might hear singing, you might hear music in the breeze, but as you get closer you'll hear the cries, you'll hear the weeping, but by then it's too late because you see, La Llorona Is looking for a little boy Just like you To replace Her lost sons.

So you will go to her, Unable to resist, once you accept her song, And then, when you get to La Llorona, She will open her arms and take you in an embrace And then drown you Like she did her own boys. That's mean. This was like my step, this is like my stepdad would be sitting at the edge of my bed and I'm like six- and this is what he's telling me- and apparently his parents did that to him.

So that's the funniest part, is like looking back. I'm like he was showing me love. He was literally doing something his parents did for him, yeah, which was just scaring me so badly because he used to always. He always ended the story with something along along the lines of: like la llorona likes little boys just like you. That's what she wants. And the whole idea was basically if you left your bedroom at night because you heard something or you left your bedroom at night, you would hear the song or you'd hear the weeping and then you would be unable to resist anymore.

And you would just walk straight to La Llorona and that was it. And he would always mention like, cause there was a Creek not far from us. He was like, that's where you'll go. You'll go to the Creek and La Llorona will hug you and drown you. Um, so I just want to say the effect that that story had on me was I remember very vividly, at like seven or eight years old, laying in bed and I had to pee really bad and debating, just pissing the bed so that I didn't have to worry about la llorona, like I was so afraid of la llorona.

The funny thing is so I was legitimately terrified of la llorona, but my mother used to tell me a story she heard when she was a little girl about the gold, the woman with the golden arm. And that the story itself scared me much more than La Llorona, except I didn't believe that the woman with the golden arm was coming to get me because that's not what the story is about.

And next month for our Halloween special Monthly Spooky, I will tell you in off the top of my head, but in detail, the version of the woman with the golden arm. My mom would tell me when I was a kid. But I'm saving that because that's like, I'm so excited about it. I'm going to make Michelle like put her blinds down and like be in the dark.

Yeah. Yeah. So that's the story, the version of the story I know. You had you ever heard of the story before? Yes. Yes. And yeah, I have. Where'd you hear it? Was it like just reading it on the internet or something? Or like on TV and those like dumb paranormal things. Oh, I forget that you watch those. Yeah. We're all very worried.

Just sometimes. So I have actually never done a deep dive on this. In fact, I hadn't really thought about La Llorona very much as an adult until that movie Curse of La Llorona came out. That was when I kind of came back to thinking about like, oh, yeah, that was my boogeyman. And the funny thing I want to mention, I was a horror movie fanatic from a very, very, very young age.

But La Llorona was not Freddy Krueger. La Llorona was real. Freddy Krueger was pretend and make believe. And yeah, you might have a scary dream about him, but whatever, you'll just wake up. But La Llorona was outside at night, every night, hoping a little boy would misbehave so she could have him. That's parenting, folks. I'm not even mad about it. I think that that's amazing.

If I had a child, I would, I would sit, I would sit up at night writing out scarier versions of La Llorona just for them. Like I would, I would, I would be like, if they start crying while I'm telling the story, I've done it right. Yeah. This is what they need. Listen, I know this is borderline child abuse. Grow up. Okay.

So, so let's learn a little bit about the history of La Llorona. This is some stuff I've never really heard about before. So let's take a look at it. This is, of course, like I said, on the most reliable source there is, Wikipedia. Early colonial texts provide evidence that the lore is pre-Hispanic, originating in the central highlands. That's interesting. Well, that makes sense, though, because if you look at a lot of, especially, mexican culture- I know that this goes all through central and south america as well- but if you look at like mexican culture, like, um, there's a lot of like german influence in the music.

Uh, I remember I blew a friend of mine's mind because I was like: you know, mariachi music is just a variation of polka, and he was like: no, it's wait. Yeah, I was like, yeah, no, they're, they're absolutely. It's a variation of polka. That's because the world is so incredibly willing to share the best stuff and people you know are willing, like I think I told you, I just found out that potatoes are from bolivia, I think it was, or colombia.

They're from the south central america. That's where potatoes originated. So until like the 1500s, there were no potatoes in europe or asia. Right, right, just no potatoes. But potatoes are ubiquitous in like indian cooking and in irish food and in european diet. They're ubiquitous. Tobacco came from the americas. It's ubiquitous everywhere. But on the other side of things, uh, because you know I I've been steeped in mexican culture a long time- I always thought, um, I always thought tamarind was a mexican thing, because it's insanely popular in mexico.

Tamarind tamarind. Tamarind's from the Middle East originally, but it's beloved and grown heavily in those areas. So, I mean, people borrow that kind of stuff all the time. Sure. So I totally believe that this could have come from the highlands and then got to Spain and then Spain brought it to Mexico. And then it just kind of, yeah, it totally makes sense.

However, La Llorona is most commonly associated with the colonial era and the dynamic between Spanish conquistadores and indigenous women. The most common lore about la llorona includes her initially being an indigenous woman who murdered her own children, which she bore from a wealthy spaniard. That's, that makes sense. That's an interesting take. I like that after he abandoned her. That makes sense too, because there were, you know, those dynamics were a big part of the struggle of mexican culture when it was first becoming mexican culture, when it was indigenous and spanish culture before it merged, which that's the other elephant in the room about mexican culture is that it's a combination of indigenous culture and spanish culture that combined, and now it's homogenous to the point where it's just mexican culture.

Right, it's, it's not spanish culture, it's very different. Um, the villainous qualities of la llorona, including infanticide and the murdering of one's own blood, is assumed to be connected to the narrative surrounding dona maria, also known as la malincha- uh, la malinche, sorry, or maltins, and I've never heard that one in her original nomenclature. Today, the lore of La Llorona is well known in Mexico and the southwestern United States.

The earliest documentation of La Llorona is traced back to 1550 in Mexico City. Wow. But there are theories about her story being connected to specific Aztec mythologies and Aztec mythological creation stories. The hungry woman includes a wailing woman constantly crying for food, which has been compared to la llorona's signature nocturnal wailing for her children. That I could see, that kind of combining the motherly nature of la llorona's tragedy, has been compared to: oh man, this is really challenging me on my ability to pronounce max.

Uh, spanish. Uh, she wa coto a oh okay, because it's an Aztec word. No wonder I was struggling with it. An Aztec goddess deity of motherhood. Her seeking of children to keep for herself is significantly compared to Guadalupe, known as Our Lady Mother or Tonasti. Aren't you glad you don't have to read? Also comparable to the Virgin of Guadalupe, another significant mother figure in Mexican culture.

Also a monster that devours filth or sin. The legend of La Llorona is traditionally told throughout Mexico. Central America and Northern South America. La Llorona is sometimes conflated with La Malinche, the Nahua woman who served as Hernan Cortes' interpreter and also bore his son. La Malinche is considered both the mother of the modern Mexican people and a symbol of national treachery for her role in aiding the Spanish.

Interesting. Stories of weeping female phantoms are common in the folklore of both Iberian and Amerindian cultures. Not heard that word before. I know what it means immediately, but what? Scholars have pointed out similarities between La Llorona and that thing from Aztec mythology that's really hard for me to pronounce, as well as Eve and Lilith of Hebrew mythology. Hey, your people got to pop up in here.

Yay. Yay. So Eve and Lilith of Hebrew. Do you know the story of Eve and Lilith? Wow. Don't get me started on you people. Your lack of good ghost stories. You upset me so much. Author ben radford's investigation into the legend of la llorona, published in mysterious new mexico, found common elements of the story in a german folktale dating to 1486. La llorona also bears a resemblance to the ancient greek tale of the demigoddess la mia, in which Hera see- now I'm saying everything in Spanish.

Hera, Zeus's wife, learned of his affair with Lamia and killed all the children Lamia had with Zeus. Out of jealousy over the loss of her own children, Lamia kills other women's children. I've heard some stories like that. The Florentine Codex is an important text that originated in late Mexico in 1519, a quote from which is, the sixth omen was that many times a woman would be heard going along weeping and shouting.

She cried out loudly at night saying, Oh, my children, we are about to go forever. Sometimes she said, Oh, my children, where am I to take you? That's creepy. While the roots of the La Llorona legend appear to be pre-Hispanic, the earliest published reference to the legend is a 19th century sonnet by Mexican poet Manuel Capillo. The poem makes no reference to infanticide.

Rather, La Llorona is identified as the ghost of a woman named Roselia, who was murdered by her husband. Mexican culture loves their songs about murder. Yeah. So this is where I'm really curious, because this breaks down some of the regional versions. And also maybe regional versions, but regional versions of the story. The legend has a wide variety of details and versions. In a typical version of the legend, a beautiful woman named Maria marries a rich ranchero or conquistador to whom she bears two children.

One day, Maria sees her husband with another woman and in a fit of blind rage, she drowns her children in a river which she immediately regrets. Unable to save them and consumed by guilt, she drowns herself as well, but is unable to enter the afterlife. Forced to be in purgatory and roam this earth until she finds her children. Yeah. In another version of the story, her children are illegitimate and she drowns them so that her, their father, cannot take them away to be raised by his new wife.

Come to think of it, I think that's actually the version I heard. I think that she drowned the kids because she knew that they would take them. Okay, because the version I heard I believe she was like poor, a poor woman. Uh, recurring themes and variations on the la llorona myth include a white wet dress, nocturnal wailing and an association with water.

So now we have a few different versions of the story listed. We have Mexico, Guatemala, United States, and Venezuela. I'm really curious if any of them have singing because the version I heard as a kid had singing, but I haven't heard anything about singing so far. So Mexico, the legend of La Llorona is deeply rooted in Mexican popular culture. Her story told to children to encourage them not to wander off in the dark, and her spirit often evoked in artwork: yeah, don't wander.

Uh, like I can't say it's that aztec word, la chial coltel. Uh, leyenda de la llorona is a yearly waterfront theatrical performance of legend of la llorona, set in uh oxymilio borough of mexico city- I'm not good with that word- established in 1993 to coincide with dia de las muertos, the day of the dead. Uh, okay, so in guatemala, according to local legend, in guatemala city lived a woman who had an affair with a lover.

She became pregnant, gave birth to a child named juan de la cruz, who she drowned, so her husband would not know. The woman was condemned in the afterlife to search for her murdered son in every place where there's a pool of water she does that by crying out for him. Hence her moniker: the Wailing Woman, or La Llorona. It is a popular scary legend that in one iteration or another has been told to generations of children.

The terrifying cry of, oh, my children, or, ah, me, oh, my God, oh, my God. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I just got really creeped out. Aw. It's okay. You don't have to read anymore. No, it's just I forgot this part. So because I grew up with Spanish in the household, I get a little uncomfortable speaking Spanish because I feel like I understand it, but I also don't speak it.

Yeah. So I do like I confidence is a big problem, but I just it says, oh, my children, it has it in Spanish. And I just remembered my stepdad screaming this to scare me. Ay mi Dios. Ay mi Dios. Oh, my my children. Ay mi Dios. Oh, my God. Dios. Oh, my God. Ay mi Dios. That scared me. That actually gave me goosebumps.

I remember that so well. See, can you, and I'm sure you're sitting here going, I can't imagine why he's done like 155 episodes of a scary story podcast. It's not like his entire life revolved around scary stories as a child. Additionally, one peculiar detail is that when a person hears the cry from afar, it means that the ghost is nearby. But if the cry is heard nearby, it means the ghost is afar.

Well, I like that. Hmm. Someone unlucky enough to face the specter is won over to the afterlife, never to be seen again. Okay. Guatemala's is pretty good. Yeah. In the South, this is the United States version in the Southwestern United States. The story of La Llorona is told to scare children into good behavior. Isn't it though? Also in this one bedroom in Ohio, I could tell you all about, I mean, my, my, you know.

For those, I mean, why would you know? My stepdad was born in mexico but raised in southern california. Okay, so I mean, he was very like he knew all the cultural elements very well. Um, sometimes, especially to deter children from playing near dangerous water, that makes sense too, yeah, yeah, also told to them is that her cries are heard as she walks around the street or near bodies of water to scare children from wandering around, resembling the stories of el kukui uh in chumash mythology indigenous to southern california.

La llorona is linked to the- I don't even know how those letters work- nuna stas, a mythological creature with a cry similar to that of a newborn baby. Yeah, still no singing. I guess that that may have been just in his family. Yeah, the tale of la llorona is set in the venezuela. Oh, this is venezuela, sorry. The tale of la llorona is set in the Venezuelanos during the colonial period.

La Llorona is said to be the spirit of a woman that died of sorrow after her children were killed either by herself or by her family. Families traditionally place wooden crosses above their doors to ward off such spirits. Wow. All right. And this is just a side note in other mythologies. In Eastern Europe, the modern Rusalaka is a type of water spirit in Slavic mythology.

They come to be after a woman drowns due to suicide or murder. Especially, especially, it says especially. Good old Wikipedia. Especially if they had an unwanted pregnancy. Then they must stay in this world for a period of time. So there's actually not as many deviations listed here as I was expecting, but they are different enough. But yeah, that's interesting. There was no singing.

No, so, because that was the part that always creeped me out- was the idea that it would be like a lullaby and you'd be like, oh, this is a friendly sound. And then it would be like: now you're drown, you know. So I'd be like, okay, well, then I'm just gonna debate peeing my bed all night. Yeah, because I was a very lucky kid, like I had very good I.

I didn't have a lot of trouble with with bathroom training. Um, so me laying in bed debating peeing the bed was a big deal. I was was literally terrified. So but I want to also, you know, credit my, my stepdad. He was also the reason I saw a lot of horror movies at night, because I would fall asleep or I would be like hanging out on the couch with him and my mom and they would watch saturday nightmares on usa, and my mom would always be like we should put him to bed because these are, this is scary stuff, and he would always be like he'll fall asleep, he's tired, and then I would not fall asleep, I would just watch saturday nightmares all night, terrified, watching episodes of the hitchhiker, which was an anthology horror show, and then also like they would show like friday the 13th movies or poltergeist or whatever, and I it just bent me completely.

And it's not all my stepdad's fault, my mother also let me watch tons of horror movies. My favorite thing was- I remember very specifically watching a scary, some scary movies, and and asking to watch more. And my mom would go, would sit me down and go, do you understand that this isn't real? And I would go, yes, I don't, I had. No, I just said, whatever it took to see more scary movies, I was mortified all the time.

Did you get to watch scary movies when you were a kid or were your parents responsible? Um, I don't know, I guess I did not not when I was a really little kid? Um, it's hard, because I had two younger siblings, so a lot of media was kind of skewed younger for me for a long time. Oh, wow, that's interesting because, see, I had the opposite experience.

My only sister was nine years older than me. So like I was reading young adult books when I was a child because I would get hand-me-downs from her, and same thing with horror movies, like she had the vhs tapes of nightmare on elm street, yeah, and that's what I would. You know, I would watch those. So it was the opposite for me.

Everything skewed older for me. Okay, yeah, it's probably because you know your parents loved you all equally or something. Um, so, so you, you, so you had a lot more younger media. Yeah. Did you ever torment your younger siblings with like scary things? No. Man. No, I'm not. I'm not that kind of person. Not that kind of sister. Like they tormented me with things like.

Yeah. They would bully their big sister. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Oh, I believe that. No offense. I don't see why you wouldn't believe that. Yeah. Not just because I know you, but because I know your siblings. Yeah. I believe that a hundred percent. So, well, before we go to our next break and then we come back and talk about horror media and Reddit and kind of wrap things up, I want to mention I'm going to be at Freddy Fest on the second weekend of October.

I don't have the dates right in front of me, but I'm going to be at Freddy Fest, which is at the Mahoning Drive-In in Lehighton, Pennsylvania. So if you're out that way and you happen to, to be nearly heightened and you want to watch nightmare on Elm street movies, I'm going to be there Friday and Saturday night. They're going to be showing nightmare on Elm street one, two, and three on Friday night and four or five and six on Saturday night.

And Jack shoulder, the director of nightmare on Elm street two will be in attendance doing autographs. I'm going just to hang out and visit with my friends at the Mahoning drive. And it's a legendary drive-in. It's one of the coolest places ever to hang out. And if you're not sure what I look like, just look for the guy wearing a Freddy sweater with his dog also wearing a Freddy sweater and you'll know it's me.

So I'm also going to be at Cinema Wasteland this coming weekend, September 30th, October 1st and October 2nd in Cleveland, Ohio. I'll be there with a booth selling copies of found footage of the series and other horror projects I've worked on and just hanging out. So if anyone happens to be near those areas and you want to stop on by, hang out with me.

I would love to see you. You never know. I've yet to meet anybody who started strictly as a fan of Weekly Spooky yet in person. So if you happen to be nearly heightened Pennsylvania or you happen to be by Cleveland, Ohio, you should stop by and say, hey. Yeah. So and there's a small but unlikely chance Michelle might might be at one of the days of Freddy Fest.

Yeah, it's possible. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't even know if there's still tickets available. I should probably have checked that before I plugged it. But anyway, so long story short, TLDR, La Llorona made me debate peeing the bed rather than get up and be drowned. And Michelle's family were oddly balanced. That's okay this time. So, well, we're going to go to a break real quick and listen to a couple of words from our sponsors, and then we'll get back and talk about horror media and wrap things up.

I gotta tell you, Michelle, when I saw you last month and we went and saw Nope, and then we saw Bodies, Bodies, Bodies in the theater. Yes. I was like, wow, there's so much horror in the theater right now. It's amazing. Boy, howdy, was it just getting started? Because September has been insane. I have seen so many brand new horror movies in the theater, and I saw Jaws remastered in 3D in the theater.

And I just wanted to mention a couple of the films I've checked out and then talk a little bit about horror media I'm excited about. Okay. So first of all, I'm going to get this one out of the way first. I saw Jeepers Creepers Reborn. The fourth jeepers creepers movie and the only jeepers creepers movie to not be helmed by the series creator director victor salva.

I'm not going to get into that. But victor salva, some people have a big problem with him. I might be some people, um, so I don't watch his movies and it I'm not going to get into it. I'm not okay. He molested a child and went to prison for it and I I'm not going to say that you're a bad person. If you watch any of his movies, the Jeepers Creepers and that was all done after he was charged.

I'm not because I think that it is a person to person thing. I just personally get a little skewed out. So I just never bothered with his movies, but my buddy bought me tickets to see the fourth Jeepers Creepers movie. And Victor Salva has nothing to do with it. So I said, Hey, why not? I don't like to say bad things about movies.

So I'm not. I did not like it. I thought it turned out really badly. I'm sorry to say that because there was an intro with the director, which was this really nice seeming Finnish guy- although I'd like to show me a mean Finnish person and I'll show you a surprised Hispanic person, so, but he introduced the movie and seemed really amped and positive and happy.

I didn't like the movie, unfortunately. It was only in theaters for three days. It just, yeah, it just, I was not a fan. So, that's whatever it is. But I saw a movie called The Invitation, a vampire movie about a woman who does a genealogy exam on the internet and finds out she has all this family in England and she ends up going out there to visit them and it turns out that you know they're servants to vampires and stuff.

It's some of them are vampires. Some of them are servants. It was a pretty good movie. That's about. Yeah. The first trailer didn't really make it clear there were vampires, but the second one did. That's why I'm saying it without worrying about it being a spoiler. But that one was pretty fun. So if you're in the mood for like a fun, spooky movie, that's not the best in the world, but it's not bad.

And it's still in the theaters around you. I highly recommend seeing the invitation. It's, it's pretty darn good. I really enjoyed it. Yay. So, um, also I'm very much looking forward to Halloween ends coming out October 14th. I can't wait to see it and make Michelle watch it so we can talk about it on this very show next month. Oh yeah. You're gonna.

Okay. You can't, you can't argue your way out of this one. It's happening. Sorry about you. You, you enjoyed the last two Halloween movies, right? Yeah. I didn't like the last one as much as I liked the other one, but, but yeah, I did. What, what, what was it about Halloween kills you like less than Halloween 20, whatever? Considering it's been a while since I've watched it.

I don't really remember. I just didn't like it as much. As much. But you still liked it? Yeah. Okay. I liked it a little less, but not much less. So I think I get where you're getting at. You know, just being snooty for the sake of being snooty. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Must be must be a nice, huh? Not really. So, so mean.

No. Oh, and the film I was I was struggling to remember it at first. The film that blew me away. Pearl. Whether you've seen the film X, which Pearl is a prequel to or not. Pearl is excellent. It is so good. It takes place during World War One. And it's basically the backstory of how a woman basically breaks mentally and then becomes an enabled murderer.

And it is so good, so well done. I cannot recommend it enough. Go see pearl, you'll it's. It's funny, it's sad, it's bizarre, it's. I loved everything about it. Yeah, I can't give much more of a review than that without spoiling it, but it was just great. So definitely go and see pearl. Go and see it. Now, as far as things I'm looking forward to, the midnight club is coming out on netflix in october.

In fact, let me see when does it come out? Um october 7th, coming right up. The midnight club is a mini series that's going to be on netflix and it's based on the christopher pike book. Loosely, I don't know how much it's based on the book, but um, because I can't imagine they turn that little young adult book into a 10-part miniseries.

Uh, so I'm guessing that they're adapting other christopher pike books as well into it. So the midnight club was a book that I read as a teenager. Talk about a book you shouldn't have been reading. Side note: christopher pike wrote the last vampire. Oh, so it all comes together. You see that, like I didn't even plan it that way, midnight club was a book by christopher pike about a group of kids who get together every night and tell scary stories to each other at midnight.

Hence, they're the Midnight Club. But you might be wondering, hey, why are they all together at midnight? Like, are they sneaking out of their house? No, they all live in the same space. Oh, well, why do they all live in the same space? Oh, they must be in like a boarding school or they must be at like a summer camp, right? No, no.

They're at a hospice for children. Oh, no. The book is about terminally ill children hanging out and telling each other scary stories. Terminally ill children who have to live in a hospice. They can't even be with their families. Wow. And it's a book about terminally ill children for children. Because they're all teenagers and the audience was teenagers. Wow. I read that book and it messed me up.

It is dark and sad. I know what you're thinking. Oh, terminally ill children book must be a comedy, right? Like laugh a minute, right? No, no. It is very, very, very, very upsetting. But I am dying to watch that show because sorry about that choice of words. I cannot wait to watch that show because it's not only based on a book I love and based on an author I love, but it's the show was created by Mike Flanagan.

The man behind the Haunting of Hill House series. The man behind Gerald's Game, the Stephen King movie, the man behind Midnight Mass, which was last year's big, scary Halloween show on Netflix. Mike Flanagan is incredible, very talented. Everything he's done so far I've really enjoyed. You never finished Haunting of Hill House, did you? No, it's 10 one hour episodes you do have.

It does take investment to get into, so I'm not going to blame you for only getting a few episodes in. I just didn't enjoy it and I made it I don't know three or four episodes and I was just like I don't want to do this. You should watch Midnight Mass. I think you might like that. And it's only seven episodes, I think, so it's a little bit shorter.

Midnight Mass is a great miniseries because you're like, as you're watching it, it's like it's it's so inspired by that era of Stephen King miniseries and stuff like that that as you're watching, you're like, oh, I want to read the book this is based on. It's like: surprise, Mother Hubbard, there is no book, it's. But Flanagan said he was like I wanted this to come across as as if it's a book adapted into a mini series.

And I thought that was really cool. My mom, I got her to watch it and she was like, I don't know. I feel about this. Like, it's pretty, it's pretty nasty and stuff. And then like my two days later, I get texted. She's like, Oh my God, I just finished it. It's amazing. And I was like, yeah, it's really good. And I'm not going to spoil what it's about.

Cause that's the best part is you don't find out what's going on until like the third episode, really know what's going on. And that's the best part. In fact, that's your homework for next month. We need to watch Midnight Mass so we can talk about it, and then I'll talk about Midnight Club, which I'm sure I'll binge all in one coffee fueled weekend.

Oh my gosh, I'm so excited. Michelle, I just realized on my drive back from Freddy Fest I'm stopping at a hotel, me and Chicano, my dog, who was very sick. You know it's our trip to like we're gonna have fun together. We stop at a hotel halfway. I'm gonna start binging Midnight or not Midnight Mass. I'm gonna start binging Midnight Club. I'm gonna start binging it in the hotel.

I love binging Netflix shows in hotels. That's become a habit of mine from having traveling so much over the years. Is that I'll try to get time where I'll be like? Oh yeah, this is because you know when you're staying in hotels there are two types of hotel stays: rest stays and, you know, just like travel stays. This is a rest day.

I could drive home the whole day and get home that day. Yeah. But I'm choosing to stop halfway and relax. Okay. So, oh, man, I'm so excited. Okay. I've talked too long. Michelle, you did your work. You did your homework. What's going on on Reddit that you've been enjoying or finding scary? Okay. So there's like not a lot going on for some reason.

That's interesting. But there was something over on. Where did this? Where did I even put the Reddit tab? Uh-oh. So on the glitch in the matrix Reddit, which is the one where things get weird, you know, that kind of thing. Um, so there's this couple, and actually I have two that both involve more than one person, which I think is interesting. Huh, yeah, usually they're like one single insane person.

Yeah, exactly, um, but there's a couple and I guess they're not in the u.s because some of their their choice of words is weird like they say garden instead of backyard so i'm gonna translate it into american in English. But like so basically there's a couple and they bought a house somewhere and the way the houses are set up and they've had it for like a year or something.

The way the houses are set up is there's like two houses like in their immediate area on the side of the street. So they have one backyard neighbor to the right, like that they share a front and a backyard with, and then on to the left of them. I guess the neighbors on the other block their backyards, go all the way through, so, like their front yards are where the backyards ends for the neighbors on the other side.

Does that make sense? Yeah, it does so. Um, so they have three neighbors that that are behind them, that backyards, um, that line up with it, with their front yard basically, um, and it's their row home, so they're all connected. It's three connected houses. And one day the guy was like in his backyard and was like why are there only two houses now?

And like, and so him and his wife or whoever they are, both remember there being three houses over there and there's not anymore. And they remember specific things like it's not, like I kind of feel like there were three yards. No, they know, like they remember all of the people and the middle people who are just don't exist anymore. They had like a, they had like a, like, um, like a playhouse, like a pirate themed playhouse in the back and like a trampoline, and they said they used to see like one of the kids like on his computer through one of the upstairs windows all the time and it's just all gone.

And they have just no idea why there's not house there anymore and there, so the two other houses are connected now it's not like there's a space. Yeah, yeah, that's really creepy. Yeah, what's that about? Yeah, well, I mean that's because last time we talked about somebody who had a cat- the stray cat- and the cat just changed, oh yeah, yeah, it was like all of a sudden groomed and clean and stuff, yeah, and that one.

I was like it's a different cat and it's like no, no, it can't be a different cat. I'm like it's a different cat, this one. I don't know how you can think there's a. I mean, that's weird. That makes me uncomfortable, because I I could just imagine that happening. Yeah, but there's no empty space for a house. No, it did. Both the houses are connected.

Now the other two houses are just connected. I mean that would be a banger of a prank to play on them like, hey, okay, when they're asleep tonight we're going to get rid of this house and then we're just going to connect our houses. So that looks like there never was a house. Yeah. That'd be a good way to, I mean, like what if they just, these are just really crappy neighbors, the, the, the people telling the story.

So they're like, let's gaslight the hell out of them until they're in an asylum. So we can get better. And that's how we'll do it. We'll remove an entire house. Yeah. And maybe move our houses like 18 inches over so that it's, so that they're connecting better. Yeah, I don't know. So what do you think? I think either it's not real or like they, I don't know.

They're just not in the same world that they were. But did you ask them, do you remember it as Berenstain Bears or Berenstein Bears? Because that's what you need to ask them. Yeah, people were asking them, we're like, so are you just in a different universe? And whoever, like the poster was like, I don't think anything else has changed. So I don't know.

I don't know. That one's pretty creepy. I like that. Yeah. Do you have another one for us? Sure. So this is also from that same Reddit, because when I go on the paranormal Reddit, it's always like, I saw a ghost in my house and that's the whole story. Yeah, glitch in the matrix is much more exciting and varied. Yeah, so so this happened, I think.

Let me see if I can find it. Um, uh, so this happened like not that, I guess a while ago when, when this person was a teenager or whatever- and um, so he was hanging out with his friend being doing teenager stuff, and they uh decided- and it was like nighttime and it was like two o'clock in the morning or or something like that- and they decided, let's go to mcdonald's.

And so they were like yay, we're gonna go to mcdonald's. And then they went to mcdonald's, um, but on the way to mcdonald's they got like t-boned by a car- another car, okay, and a really serious accident. That um, the the poster remembers in like vivid detail and is like 100 sure he died, oh god. And um like remembers like seeing the car from above and like paramedics and stuff.

And then everything went black and he was suddenly just back at the house with his friend about to leave to go to mcdonald's. And his friend is like on the verge of tears and he goes: we can't go because we're gonna die. And his friend's like, yeah, I know, so they didn't go to mcdonald's, but they both had a shared memory of them dying in a car accident on the way to mcdonald's.

Well, and the sad part is they, they didn't get to go to mcdonald's. I know now I want to go to mcdonald's, yeah, but don't because you could get in a car accident. I mean yeah, because before you said that his friend knew I was gonna say: well, that's a nightmare. Yeah, that's what that is is a nightmare, but with his friend involved.

That makes me think that they're just doing drugs. Well, that's what commenters asked and they said: no, they were not doing drugs or drinking anything. But they had been. They had been doing LSD every day for 50 days straight, but that was the day they stopped. Well, according to this poster, they didn't do any drugs when they were teenagers, which could happen.

I didn't do any drugs when I was a teenager. Loser. I didn't either. I still don't do any drugs. Pathetic. We're so lame. Yeah. But that is, I mean, that's some Final Destination stuff right there. That's creepy. You've seen any of those movies? I've seen the first one. It's a good one. That's a good movie. Yeah. They're all pretty fun. They become, as you go further and further in the series, you get into like part five and six and stuff.

The big thing becomes that opening sequence where the horrible death happens that they're trying to avoid the rest of the movie. Okay. So like that just becomes like a challenge to the filmmakers. Like how insane can it be? Like how bad can things go when a logging truck crashes? Or like one of them- I forget which one that was, maybe it was part seven or something- was at an amusement park and it was just like insane.

Like the amusement park, right, it's like flying off the things and then rebars are like stabbing into people's eyes and stuff. Like I love how it's. Like that's the goal is like how insane can that opening be? How insane can we get it? That's a good, that's a good goal for a horror movie series, in my opinion, is like how nutsoid can we get?

So, uh, but that one's, that one's pretty creepy. But I, you know, I I think they just were doing drugs and their mom reads their reddit, so they won't admit that they drugs. But, uh, is there any more or is that? Is that what you got her? Um, I don't have any more. That are like that good, oh, that's okay because we're at about the end of the show, but I want to say a big thank you to everybody who's been listening and thank you so much for the awesome feedback we've been getting.

This is only the third episode of Monthly Spooky. And it's a little bit of a different thing here on, on weekly spookies feed. You know, we have the regular Weekly Spooky show and we have the terrifying and true that we just launched. And then also Monthly Spooky, which is this kind of talk show format. And I'm really glad you guys are enjoying it so much.

So feel free to email us if you have anything you want to say, especially if you want to, you know, yell at Michelle or chide her for any number of things she's done that have hurt your feelings at Weekly Spooky at gmail.com. You can send us an email. If you need any information about anything we've done here, you can go to Weekly Spooky.com and see that info.

And if you want to support us via Patreon or by buying something, we really do appreciate it, but we just appreciate you guys lending us your ears because you're awesome. And we really appreciate it. And I'm sure Michelle is even begrudgingly enjoying doing the show. Yeah, ooh, that was. That was a. That was pretty harsh right there. Michelle, if you don't shape up, I'm afraid La Llorona is going to come for you.

I don't really want that. I know you don't, no one does, oh, I'm just trying to protect you so. So we're going to get out of here, but we will see you guys next month for a big October show, and we appreciate it so much that you listen and we'll talk then. So, bye.