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Lost in The Paranormal - Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum and Ghostwatch
26 Plays2 months ago
Welcome to Spooktober!! We're kicking the season off with a conversation on found footage, and discussing Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum and Ghostwatch! Stay tuned for more horror themed episodes this month.
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Transcript
Ominous Introduction and Halloween Theme
00:00:14
Speaker
The following audio footage was recovered from the scene of a grisly, horrible crime. What you are about to hear is the last known recording of these three podcasters alive.
00:00:29
Speaker
Welcome back to Lost in the Frame. My name is Alex. My name is Malik.
00:00:36
Speaker
My name is Tachi. And we are super excited to bring you guys our first October spooktober, whatevertober, Halloween themed episode.
00:00:49
Speaker
Boo. I'm terrified. Did I get you guys? I poop my pants. What if you cursed us with that intro, by the way? um What if this is?
00:01:01
Speaker
What if some freak final destination stuff happens to us? Well, actually, the odds of all of us dying between the next episode are very low. Unless you're going to do something.
00:01:11
Speaker
But greater than zero. Never zero.
00:01:17
Speaker
Well, hopefully we come back. We'll see. we Yeah, i maybe I did curse us, but I mean, maybe we cursed the audience. Maybe it's, you know, don't widespread
Diving into Found Footage Films
00:01:30
Speaker
the curse. The spooky demon within these files is going to haunt everybody. But yeah we are super excited to dive into this month.
00:01:39
Speaker
um We've been talking about this for a while. We got some great plans um for it on you know episodes that we're going to do. So we're really excited to share them with you. But we thought a great place to start.
00:01:50
Speaker
would be in the bowels of the found footage genre. Ooh.
00:01:59
Speaker
Yes, all all two of you are very excited.
00:02:04
Speaker
Taji wasn't excited. I wanted to open this with just talking about what you guys' first found footage movie was, if you remember, and then we can talk about what your, maybe what your favorite is, if you could pick.
00:02:18
Speaker
Do you guys recall what your first, what baby's first found footage film was?
00:02:24
Speaker
think mine was... ah
00:02:28
Speaker
a zombie movie, but pretty scary. It's called quarantine. Have you guys seen it? Oh yeah. I've seen it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I had that in my shout outs to, to just shout it out. Cause quarantine. I remember.
00:02:39
Speaker
Yeah. That, that first scene with Ms. Espinosa has always stuck with me. I think you talked about it on the pod recently, and talk like watching it in middle school or something, right? Yeah. ah looking at what i scored the most yeah I was looking at like the top hundred found footage films, assuming that probably my first one came from there.
00:02:59
Speaker
In my head, I was thinking it was Cloverfield. Oh, that's right. looking at dates, I think it would have to be Paranormal Activity. I think mine is Paranormal Activity as well.
00:03:11
Speaker
Which was released in 2007. So like I didn't watch The Blair Witch until a few years ago. Paranormal Activity 2007. Cloverfield 2008. I believe Quarantine was also 2008. Okay. i believe quarantine was also two thousand and eight okay I know I watched paranormal activity, but it was after quarantine.
00:03:28
Speaker
Quarantine was like warming me up. Okay. Got it. How did you feel about paranormal activity after quarantine? I hated it. yeah And I still, I still have not watched that.
00:03:40
Speaker
Like the last three seconds of the movie. Um, when the thing is like walking up to the camera oh um i covered my face with a pillow so and talk about a moment paranormal activity had the nation in a chokehold the the first paranormal activity like i wonder if it's age 12 i haven't watched it since like middle school but it was i remember being pretty solid and I would like to rewatch it.
Creepy Found Footage: Personal Experiences
00:04:10
Speaker
There's a few here that I wanted to shout out. I wanted to get you guys as quick opinions on these. And then if you have any that you want to shout out before we get into the movies that we watched, and feel free to do so. So I had paranormal activity as above. So below. Yeah, that was a good one. that That's a I think a pretty unique one in terms of like what actually happens in it. I think so. I thought it was pretty ambitious. I quite enjoyed For sure.
00:04:32
Speaker
uh i had blair witch project moving on cloverfield think cloverfield is overhated i i don't think it's do you think it's a hated i remember people hating it when it came out well i feel like people now like it i remember that too but it's good yeah like good yeah it's an american kaiju movie and it shows like it's yeah so american and also the monster rips it's so cool I think they should reboot Cloverfield.
00:05:00
Speaker
So I think 10 Cloverfield Lane is also an excellent movie. And then the third one we have is what the Cloverfield paradox. i don't know if you guys ever saw that one, but it was not great. It was just a straight to Netflix release and it just got really like convoluted with like time jumping and the universe and all this stuff like that i'm like you don't need to you don't need to do all of that we could sit we could make this like very grounded it could be like our very own like american kaiju like our godzilla if they really tried so i would love to see a cloverfield reboot um had quarantine here creep all the creep movies i've only seen the first creep but the first creep is it's pretty creepy
00:05:42
Speaker
Very good. Never heard of it. And then Apollo 18. I don't remember if it was good, but I remember seeing it in theaters and enjoying the premise. I watched this movie in the back of my dad's Land Cruiser on the way to skiing in New Hampshire, which is the whitest sentence I've ever uttered in my entire life. I was here with my buddy, and I remember it being terrible.
00:06:06
Speaker
The premise was super cool, but it was like lacking so much. Yeah. like I don't remember a lot of it, but i was reading the synopsis, and was like, I remember this. That's a really that's a really cool concept.
00:06:18
Speaker
is it Is it something happening on the moon? Is that right? Yeah. It's like found footage of the moon landing. Gotcha. we didn't just land on the moon we found missing mission of the apollos yeah yeah and then the this one came out in 2020 2022 host twenty twenty twenty twenty two host It was kind of like unfriended over the camera. i all see doing as i say um I heard it was pretty good for ah like a zoom movie.
00:06:45
Speaker
It's solid. It's everything that war of the world should have been. And then the last one I had on my list was the fourth kind. And in parentheses, and we'll get into it. I put, this was my ghost watch.
00:06:57
Speaker
The fourth kind, dude, the first half, I think that movie loses it towards the end of it. um But the first half of that movie terrified me.
00:07:10
Speaker
It got me. it it It's so realistic. The first half, like the first it really jumps the shark towards the end. But the first half, like I watched it kind of way too young. There's a pretty crazy like murder suicide scene in that movie that like messed me up. I thought I thought it was real.
00:07:26
Speaker
I watched it very young and it scarred me for quite a bit. That's like young enough to the point where it's like I'm not going on the Internet to Google any of this. This happened. in my mind i i remember thinking the same thing and i remember like having to have my parents tell me like this is a fake movie like this did not happen like it was or or i googled it or something i just remember being like there's no way this is real like i i there's no way watched someone die like in my living room what is on the tv that stupid owl though oh ice okay so i remember watching this in phoenix at my uncle's house i i'm sure there was not an owl
00:08:07
Speaker
But I remember seeing an owl that night, like through the window. I think I was just hallucinating and scared out of my mind. But I was fuck, they're here. And the next time I saw an owl in person, I was legit terrified.
00:08:19
Speaker
Because one, i had never seen an owl in person. ah love owls. And I saw it turn its head. And I said, whoa, they can do that. And it freaked me. So I was fully convinced it was an alien. And then the flood like memories of the movie came back. and You got one-shotted by a bird? Literally. Literally.
00:08:36
Speaker
Of the ones you highlighted, which do you think is objectively the scariest? The scariest? Yeah. i I kind of want to go as above, so below.
00:08:48
Speaker
Really? Yeah, I would go as above, so below. Maybe host, but maybe these are just like the best made ones. Like Cloverfield isn't like.
00:09:01
Speaker
A quote unquote horror movie. Even though I think that's like the drama. Like I'm leaning more like sci-fi. So I'm not going to say Cloverfield. So I think I'll go as above so below. Because I feel like a rewatch of the fourth kind. Like you're saying Alex. May not hold up.
00:09:14
Speaker
But as above so below is just so. Like you were saying unique. In it's premise and what it does. In the found footage genre.
00:09:23
Speaker
And that shit's real. I mean not the events. But like. You don't know that. The graves. But yeah, the Paris catacombs are real. The catacombs are real. Right.
Exploring 'Ganjom Haunted Asylum'
00:09:34
Speaker
Some of the ones that I wanted to call out um that have really stuck with me over the years. And I'm not going to include like District 9 or anything like that.
00:09:45
Speaker
It's like technically a found footage movie, but it's not really a horror movie. um I'm just I'm looking at the letterbox list of like found footage compendium and I surf subs here um ah so we're not getting they found the footage did you guys ever see grave encounters no no but I did see that they're making a remake of it they are yeah with ah Justin Long man the first one the second one is terrible but the first one i think is one of my favorite found footage movies it i remember watching it in like a high school or middle school sleepover or something i fell asleep the first 20 minutes nothing happened i woke up and it was like a nightmare like when that movie pops off it pops off pretty similar premises to uh um one of the movies we're going to talk about later today
00:10:39
Speaker
um Some of the other ones that I hold a special place in my heart for, um, Naroi, the curse. It's a Japanese found footage movie came out in 2005.
00:10:52
Speaker
It is like documentary style and it is just, it does the creep factor so well. Um, is it supernatural? Like paranormal? Okay. Yeah. It's, it's paranormal and it, it's so good. uh,
00:11:06
Speaker
Like it feels like a really crappy like documentary you'd see on YouTube in like 2005. It absolutely nails it. And um it's, I think personally,
00:11:21
Speaker
my favorite found footage movie. Ooh. Now the next found footage movie I think is personally the most disturbing and I've definitely brought it up on the pod before and you guys like a thousand times, so ah but it's cannibal Holocaust. Yeah. the most disturbing found footage movie I've ever seen.
00:11:37
Speaker
um It probably warrants its own discussion and episodes. So I won't bog this one down with it, but ah it's yeah. I've just never seen anything like it in terms of,
00:11:51
Speaker
what is on those 90 minutes of film. This rating curve for Cannibal Holocaust is crazy on Letterboxd. It's an insanely controversial movie for a number of reasons, but I think it executes its vision perfectly.
00:12:09
Speaker
It's not like a movie that I'd sit down and be like, oh, this is enjoyable. But it's a movie that I think i think it's really well done. I think it's really good. um but you got to be in a really particular mood to watch it. It's not like, Oh, I'm going to, Oh, like I got, I got a date over. I'm going scare her a little bit. We're putting on cannibal. That's like a warning for yourself.
00:12:30
Speaker
Yeah. Is this, is this the movie that you said had incredible, effects? Yeah. Okay. For like the seventies or eighties or whenever it came out.
00:12:40
Speaker
Um, We can talk about a little bit when we get to the the second move we're going to cover today because it had a similar reaction to it. Gotcha. um So we we can table that. But the first movie on our found or Tachi, did you have any found footage movies you wanted to contribute?
00:12:59
Speaker
I thought I did, but I'm blanking right now, so it's okay. Well, you did contribute one of our picks for this episode. One of the two. fortunately So I want, how about you come and introduce our first movie to us?
00:13:14
Speaker
Let me pull it up. So the first one we're talking about today is Ganjom Haunted Asylum. So a Korean movie. um I'm pretty sure the lead is famous in Korea. Let me pull it up.
00:13:27
Speaker
The captain? Yeah, the captain. He looks pretty familiar. His name is Wee Ha-Joon. Oh, he's in Squid Game. Oh. Yeah. he did like He did look familiar. Yeah. um Yeah, so this movie was made in 2018, directed by Jung Bumchik, and it's hour and a half.
00:13:49
Speaker
um Just a group of friends, kind of. I guess ah paranormal enthusiasts, they all go to make some content.
00:14:00
Speaker
you know, the the prospect of a lot of money through ad revenue by live streaming their adventure into this haunted asylum. And shit gets real. Yeah. ah Some fates are worse than others for sure.
00:14:14
Speaker
It's certainly a, it is a ride. And, um, I mean, it, it grabs you from the opening scene. and so one one question i had for you tachi since i i had never heard of this movie before this was your suggestion which to our listeners is a little surprising considering that t-money here does not like horror movies he i don't know if he's gonna hate this month like you're gonna his enjoyment of participating I'm going to stop showing up.
00:14:47
Speaker
We're going to do an anime month just to make up for what we're putting in through today. um yeah But when was the first time you watched this and why did you watch it? watched it with an old internet friend like somewhat recently. I think within the last two or three years.
00:15:02
Speaker
um People just like seeing me scared and suffering. So ah that's why. I've never contributed to that. I are these friends in the room with you right now on a Zoom call with you? Not presently, but yeah.
00:15:20
Speaker
They could be. That's pretty much it. But um yeah, this is my so my first rewatch, so my second time watching it. um It's not as scary as the first time, but that's because I stopped it halfway through.
00:15:36
Speaker
How do you guys feel about just the overall structure of the movie? Like incorporating, it does something, ah there's always a a little twist when it comes to found footage films.
00:15:49
Speaker
There's always like a little bit of a gimmick. This movie's gimmick is having it be centered around like live stream. culture and i think so for this movie coming out in 2019 like obviously live streaming still was a thing i think it's a lot more prevalent today that we see a lot of big entertainers come straight from twitch that get hundreds hundreds of thousands of viewers which is like insane so like i think today like streaming live streaming has never been as big as it is now but how does like the concept of live streaming and horror work particularly for this movie for you guys
00:16:24
Speaker
I think it works pretty well. And also, I guess another gimmick is that they had these GoPros strapped to them, um I guess, around their their chest. So you get these face shots all throughout the movie from everyone's different perspectives.
00:16:40
Speaker
um You can see their face and what they're looking at. um So I thought that was really neat. It did a really good job at having like great camera direction despite being like a found footage movie.
00:16:53
Speaker
like I think one of the problems with the genre as a whole is, and sometimes it's by design, it works to its you know beneficiary, is just like the camera not being able to like focus on stuff. and You see it turn into like a complete mess, but this did not have that happen.
00:17:10
Speaker
And it's very plausible in its execution as well on how it was able to achieve that. I myself am a huge, huge sucker for like ghost hunting shows, ghost adventures. Love it.
00:17:23
Speaker
Watch like every episode of it. The original documentary is one of the scariest pieces of media I've ever seen. Um, But they had a very similar setup to the Ghost Adventures team and, you know, how they have like static cameras throughout a location um and you know, the cameras on themselves.
00:17:46
Speaker
you You know, they actually were a little bit more high tech than the Ghost Adventures crew, which was which was pretty cool. I mean, and they had the drone. They had like the multicams that showed like the whole room, the whole angle, like walking in. Yeah.
00:18:01
Speaker
And i thought the way that they did the the guy back at, you know, HQ directing it, I thought that was really well done. And it added another layer to the movie. And I think another layer of anxiety because I think there was so much going on in the movie, which is pretty rare for a found footage that, you know, when, when it really started to get going,
00:18:27
Speaker
it was coming at you from like nine different angles. Yeah. Yep. Quite literally. Yeah, i think I think it's awesome that the way that this is set up to be like its own big show within this world, that he had like the the resources to give all these people, all these cameras.
00:18:47
Speaker
I mean, he was like like, they had the whole nine yards. they were they were They were prepped, like they had And it's really cool just seeing like, just in the universe of the movie, the production value that they were able to bring.
Real-Life Haunted Locations
00:19:00
Speaker
albeit with some ill intentions going into this from from Mr. Captain himself. I was a little upset at first that he was staying back. I was like, what?
00:19:12
Speaker
you can You can just do that?
00:19:16
Speaker
He's like, yeah, I'm the captain. I was like, all right, this guy's gonna, he's gonna take our, he's gonna take our, our people home. He's gonna do it. And then he's just all comfy. He's to blame for a lot of what unfolded, but he did have to watch all of it happen.
00:19:34
Speaker
So that, that sucks. He watched, but did he care? Cause all he was seeing in his eyes were dollar signs. That's true. They had a lot of viewers. They had a lot of viewers, and this is it's saying a lot about the current state of the world and capitalism, I would say.
00:19:50
Speaker
We live in a society. We do live in a society. um Fun fact about this movie. I don't know if we've mentioned this, but this is... So in the movie, they mention that the asylum that they're going to was in CNN's ah top seven place top seven haunted places around the world.
00:20:07
Speaker
That's not just for the movie. That is true. it's It's on there, yeah. um If you're wondering what the other six are, the first one is Chernobyl. That's pretty self-explanatory.
00:20:20
Speaker
If you don't know what Chernobyl is, then... Read a book. Yeah, seriously. like um The Sedlec Ossuary in the Czech Republic, um which I had never heard of, but it's kind of like the Paris Catacombs of As Above, So Below, where it contains the skeletal remains of about 40,000 human beings dispersed throughout the interior in artistically arranged designs. Bone temple.
00:20:47
Speaker
it's Yeah, it is it's the bone temple. Yeah, it basically is the bone temple. I think it was donated like to this. Yeah, like I need to read more about that.
00:21:00
Speaker
um The Aoki Gohara Forest, ah based on Mount Fuji in Japan, was one of them. You guys would probably colloquially known it as the Suicide Forest.
00:21:11
Speaker
Shout out Logan Paul. Shout out Logan Paul. that Jokes aside, though, like Logan Paul aside, I have seen some like ghost hunts from there. And that is like with even without like ghosts and like the the way that that forest has garnered its fame.
00:21:31
Speaker
It's scary. Like it gets really dark in there. and It's really dense and it gets really dark. And that place is freaky. um I'd never heard of this one either. The Akadesa Fetish Market in Lome, Togo.
00:21:46
Speaker
um No, not that kind of fetish. um By fetish, I'm quoting the article. We're referring to talismans that are used in voodoo healings. Things like crocodile heads, chimpanzee hands, cobras, and bones.
00:21:59
Speaker
The picture is pretty nasty. It's like shrunken heads. You know, it's like, oh, I got a shrunken head from a voodoo priest. Like, that's what they're talking about. Five, Las Islas de las Muñecas.
00:22:10
Speaker
Sorry to all the Spanish speaking listeners. I'm bad at your language. colloquially known as the Island of the Dolls in Mexico City, Mexico. This place is super creepy.
00:22:20
Speaker
There's a Ghost Adventures episode and a Destination Truth episode on it. Both of them are pretty wild. Number six, Battleship Island in Nagasaki, Japan. It looks like a battleship from far away. It used to be a coal mining island.
00:22:34
Speaker
There's like a mine in it. You can go there now, but it's extremely dangerous because the whole thing is abandoned and crumbling. um But access to get into it's really restricted. And then ah the seventh on the list was Gonjim Psychiatric Hospital in Korea, which is the star of our show.
00:22:49
Speaker
And unfortunately, it was demolished after this movie was made. So it's no longer there, but man, is it a creepy flipping building? It is creepy. It really is very creepy.
00:23:00
Speaker
Real quick. I just wanted to say a quick trivia fact talking about the building. So the filmmakers were unable to get permission from the South Korean government to film in the actual hospital. So scenes in the film set in Ganjem were actually filmed at the national maritime high school in Busan with the production team adhering closely to the floor plan of the hospital to recreate exactly the same exterior and hallways.
00:23:21
Speaker
They did a really good job making it look dilapidated. They did a great job. it I actually thought it was the real that they shot on location. It looks that grimy and dingy.
00:23:32
Speaker
Yeah, set design was sick. It was so good. that That makes it so much more impressive now, actually. Let's talk about the movie. I mean, i think the big question on everyone's lips is, do we think this was an effective movie? Were you scared by it?
00:23:51
Speaker
Yes, I was. I was too. Nice. Like I genuinely creeped out. Dude, there is, okay, the first scene, like the opening sequence, immediate like shivered down my spine.
00:24:03
Speaker
Then it takes a little bit to get going again, but I was talking to my sister about it because she's been on a found footage kick recently and I told her, I'm like, there is a straight 20 minutes in this movie of just scare after scare after scare and they're all good.
00:24:19
Speaker
Yeah. and for me, like the start of that was the hallway scene. That's where it really kicked off. And then from there to basically almost the end is, is just like, yeah, describe the brutal describe the hallway scene.
00:24:36
Speaker
ah The scene where two of the characters, forget their names, um they're in the... I forget which room it was, but the poltergeist activity starts happening and then one of them gets dragged down the hallway.
00:24:48
Speaker
Yes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. When he starts running back, I didn't realize what was happening. That creeped me out. And then it just... The thing that I think, and I'll be interested to hear you guys' take on this.
00:25:03
Speaker
This movie did such a good job with it scares because I think it like hinted that they were coming so well, but then tease you with it. So it's like you were expecting, expecting nothing happened, nothing happened. And then it happened, but it like dragged you out for so long. It kind of has you let it to let your guard down.
00:25:23
Speaker
And every time I knew they were coming in every single time they got me. And I think the most emblematic of that is Charlotte in room 402. oh yeah well Charlotte had it bad bro like I don't really bad yeah like you were you were right Tachi in saying that some got it worse than others like two maybe two of these of this group got let out pretty easy like regardless they're all gone but like come on yeah I think it was like two of the girls had it the the easiest yeah but Charlotte really suffered yeah
00:25:58
Speaker
and why i don't know i guess because she vandalized yeah vandalized the building maybe vandalized it she's like i i think it's hinting that maybe she lived in america at some point yeah um yeah so i don't know she the vandalism thing and i she was also gloating about being there too she's like i've been to four of the top seven like you know Which I mean, I think is fine because I'm thinking of like the group as a whole. And so the three boys that we have in this are the team um behind what is the ah the channel's name?
00:26:33
Speaker
think Horror Times. Horror Times. Yeah. And so they're just recruiting, I guess, like fanatics of these haunted places, which I don't know if I missed this, but I kind of felt like Charlotte may have been like the only one.
00:26:46
Speaker
that was kind of a fanatic in her saying that like oh yeah i've been to four of the seven because like the other two girls i was like why are they here i don't know if maybe i missed something in the movie and you guys can help me connect these pieces it was never really explained i think they were just fans that were recruited to come in okay i mean the the director had his nefarious reasons to bring in inexperienced people so they could have just been recruited like hey we're doing this thing you want to come do it and're like okay sure like how bad could it really be you know yeah Real bad.
00:27:17
Speaker
I did really like the, after the really scary opening, um just that quick, like 15 minute part of the movie where they're just having fun It felt pretty genuine and I was having fun watching them have fun, like playing in the water, shooting the shit.
00:27:35
Speaker
Getting drinks with the boys. Yeah, it was nice. the girls don't be And the girls. It felt really natural and I really liked that. It did and i think I think that particular aspect is something that i really that I also really enjoyed of this movie because I mean thinking about some of these other found footage films,
00:27:51
Speaker
sometimes we'll get like glimpses of life before the tragedy is happening or like the plot of the movie but this took its time in kind of establishing this group even though they had just met like we see them all like laughing together and it really lent its hand in caring about these characters and i'm thinking just back to like the van ride to the asylum yeah Like I just, I like, I already felt close to them and in their relationships and just them laughing and trying to decide like, Oh, who's going to go up to room 402 and just like kind of playing that as off as a joke. And then obviously once we get to room 402 thinking back to that moment, be like, damn, like, yeah, they really got them.
00:28:36
Speaker
So yeah, big, big highlight of me for this movie was just having that time to let these characters like breathe before we get into the nitty-gritty of it all another thing that i wanted to shout out obviously this conversation is going to be full of spoilers was just having the director with his nefarious tactics in the background because coming into a found footage film, I think we're pretty groomed to already assume like the worst is going to happen.
00:29:06
Speaker
And like you were saying, Alex, it's very good at building that tension. And once we start getting some of that tension and we think it's real, we find out this B plot of the director kind of just wanting to farm,
00:29:18
Speaker
these inexperienced people and these viewers just for the money, like that he's purely just in it for the money. So i don't know if he doesn't have the belief of the past things that have happened here or, or what, but that's something that I also really enjoyed from this was getting, getting some character with a, uh, with a different motive in the background.
00:29:43
Speaker
Did you guys expect that? I didn't. I kind of did. I had my suspicions. You're suspicious of everybody though. Wake up sheeple.
00:29:55
Speaker
But then after the seance and they get to that box with, uh, I forget the girl who sticks her hand in and then everything gets real. I and didn't like that.
00:30:06
Speaker
That is a great scene. like great acting like Great acting from the two guys that were're in that were in ah the the plan. like He did a really good job just portraying that and then shout out to the girl for being brave enough to be like, okay, like i we like we need to see what's in there.
00:30:21
Speaker
But just the ah the conflict that those two characters had for about a minute in her in here, trying to get in him, trying to get her not to put her hand in to not like spoil the whatever's going on.
00:30:32
Speaker
And then just see yeah that immediate flip. And that's when shit really hits the fan. Really great scene there. For sure. So good. And as they're leaving. after all the bells are ringing after the sounds and everything, there's one bell that like swings and rings, um, as the things start to progress. And I thought that was just a, a neat little nugget. Yeah. I didn't even notice that. I didn't either.
00:30:58
Speaker
ah was just lost in them screaming. Tachi was this, you had mentioned when you had pitched this movie to us for this episode, you mentioned there was one scene that scarred you for life. Yeah. Was it the Charlotte room four or two scene?
00:31:11
Speaker
i want to get Wait, wait, wait. I want to guess too. I'm going to say that when the two girls are in the forest, when her eyes turn black. Yeah, <unk> it's right before the 402 scene. Okay. Yeah.
00:31:25
Speaker
And you're just so close to the face. I didn't like being that close. You know what? And I didn't even i didn't even think. like I was just like, we got the GoPros and I'm like, this is really cool. Cool reaction cams.
00:31:36
Speaker
Real good use of doing that. Yeah, especially with hands later on. Oh. I hated that too. The first clip that we see of the hands was like very quick before we start getting a bit more focused.
00:31:49
Speaker
And i was like, hold hold up. What was that? The... For me, though, the one that was just like, I don't know why it scared me as much as it did.
00:32:01
Speaker
The ping pong ball. Oh, the ping pong ball got me when it comes flying back in. I knew it was coming. just we heard it got me but I want to shout another thing of the set design.
00:32:13
Speaker
The IR lights. that flash down the hallway when someone when motion was captured. Yes. Was. That very good. Gary. Yeah. It they were cooking in this one.
00:32:27
Speaker
i don't even remember how I had heard of it because it had been on my list. And when you brought it up, I'm like, oh, perfect. But Oh, man. that the The set design. They did such a good job with the atmosphere, but for me, the cherry on top is Charlotte in room 402.
00:32:43
Speaker
yeah That thing. What was that? I don't know. Let's discuss that. I don't want to know. i mean, i feel like a lot of these were... i don't know aberration is the right word, but just a lot of psychological torture. like Because they thought that they were in the forest when they were trapped inside the entire time. So it's it's hard to figure out what's really happening to them or not.
00:33:09
Speaker
But either way, I hate whatever that thing was. Yeah, I think that's what got me because like I'm watching this and I'm thinking that it's going to be just like like ghost encounters. like Things flying off the walls.
00:33:21
Speaker
moving around all of everything that happens with the ghost and then the second something physical popped up that i did not expect i was out i was done just the way it moved yeah yeah not a fan of her moving and then it moving like she goes like around the corner and then it's like sliding yes
00:33:47
Speaker
ah Gross. One part, this doesn't break my immersion. I don't know what she was looking at, but she's looking at the thing and I don't know where she's supposed to go like look, but it just felt like they were doing this for tension's sake.
00:34:02
Speaker
She kind of just like pans her head right like slowly and then turns back and I'm like, I would be keeping my eyes on this thing the entire time. I'd be swinging. Where are you looking? Oh, I'm in room four. I'm in room Fido too. Yeah.
00:34:17
Speaker
This is before everything starts happening, but that scene um with the two people that were... I think they were the ones assigned to opening 402, but it's way before this, and they're exploring some of the earlier rooms, and it's the room with... like It almost looks like a well, but like a yeah a weird bathtub. Yes.
00:34:36
Speaker
But like that thing with the wig... Oh, that's when I thought things were about to get bad. Yeah. I didn't like how it looked, though. Me neither.
00:34:47
Speaker
I'm glad that it was just the wig. Yeah, it was. It was. that has it even there That one got me. I don't know. they just Oh, maybe someone put it as a prank. I'm like, that's not a good prank.
00:34:58
Speaker
That's me. This mean spirited. I will say one thing I noticed on rewatch is that not a lot of things happened in the background of the face like shot.
00:35:10
Speaker
I was a little little disappointed by that. I was looking for it. Yeah. I spent a lot of the time looking for it. Yeah, I think when i whenever I watch horror movies, I'm always looking at the back.
00:35:22
Speaker
Like, it's not just what's in focus. Like, you need to pay attention to the shadows and everything like that. yeah They do make up for, like we were saying, with the use of the hands and getting that. But I thought there'd be, like, a bit more of that. So that was something I was also on the lookout for.
00:35:37
Speaker
was just things scurrying in the back. but Shadows hiding and creeping. I think my favorite part about this movie though, and they, they do like specifically highlight this.
00:35:50
Speaker
it It was like right after the stuff with the seance happens and everyone's really freaked out. She's got the scratches on her arm. There's a scene that the captain reviews And it's like, he he's counting the people in the frame and it's all six of the people that are in the asylum.
00:36:06
Speaker
And then he pauses it and he's thinking he's, he's counting them. He's, he's naming them. And he's like, wait, who's filming this? And I, ah that was one of the most unsettling things.
00:36:17
Speaker
And it's quick. Like if you blink, you could kind of miss it. You can miss that, that quick snippet of dialogue, but I'm glad you shouted that out. Mm-hmm. The other thing was with the writing on the wall, which like it's different. and He's like, no, it's the same. It's clearly different. and Yeah, for sure. I can't write or speak Korean outside of Pungap Sunida, but it was clearly different. yeah He was in denial for sure.
00:36:41
Speaker
He's like, nah, it can't be. Were there any other things that disappointed you guys other than lack of background activity? I do think it takes a while to take off.
00:36:54
Speaker
Yep. This movie has a good runtime of an hour and a half. And I think for the most part, it utiliz utilizes it well, especially like in the last 30 minutes. But yeah I mean, the first hour, it's kind of just we're we're trudging through.
00:37:06
Speaker
and it's starting to well yeah slowly building that tension. And then that tension is kind of broken once we find out that like the director behind this is and kind of orchestrating some of these scares themselves.
00:37:18
Speaker
Yeah. But like we were saying, like once it gets going, it gets going. But it is a ah it does take a while to get there. There's also a bit of a lack of gore, but I think that's okay.
00:37:30
Speaker
I think that's fine. Yeah. um Just because I don't really love gore for gore's sake. I know I've always said that a few times, but um I think leaving their actual deaths open to interpretation was pretty neat.
00:37:45
Speaker
I think the one thing I was disappointed in, and this just boils down to most horror movies for me, is I think they ended up showing their hand a little too much with the monsters and ghosts. if We saw a little too many of them.
00:37:57
Speaker
By the end of it, it was all kind of just jam packed into one. Yeah. Yeah. It's I think when you start seeing visuals, it really brings the scare down, in my opinion.
00:38:09
Speaker
Because for the most part, like that's not super realistic. like If you're going to go ghost hunting, like you're not going to really see an apparition. You'll hear things, sounds, banging. You might catch one out of the corner of your eye.
00:38:22
Speaker
There might be one leering at you from your closet as you try and sleep. But it's not going to be like that. you know it's so and I hope not. Then were you disappointed by 402 being what it was once like three of them went in there?
00:38:37
Speaker
yeah it was a i definitely think the movie's peak was those 20 minutes where it was just like going and then i enjoyed the end but i wasn't like blown away by it okay i did like the water ceiling i thought that was cool the water ceiling was really cool that was yeah yeah it was a neat little effect I really when they're in room 402 and they start kind of hearing the voices and he's looking through things through the night vision seeing the girl at first and then just seeing a line of patients lined up really like that really like that shot but overall good scares for sure do we want to rate this one before we go into the next one or I'm down sure I give 3.5 me too
00:39:26
Speaker
too same look at us we're holding we always give the same rating it's okay that doesn't make it very fun it's okay and even if we don't it doesn't vary too far that's but we can't oh real quick though we haven't talked about the captain and his demise were you guys scared by that No, I think that's where it kind of fell off for me. Okay.
00:39:51
Speaker
Just because some of the other scares that we got were so like visceral and his just felt very quick. Like his his motivation for running back into the asylum felt even though it's like to try to keep the views obviously everything at that point is like it everything's kind of done yeah like it doesn't even have access to the computer anymore and i'm like what are you still doing like and he's not going in there to save them or anything like that yeah and so kind of just the way that his ends i would say a little abruptly is just like it ends like the like screen turns to black and credits while i'm just still like okay this is good
00:40:30
Speaker
i like i I did like, though, that it showed him having to witness something when he's running up to the building. He looks through that like upper window oh and they sees someone getting hung or something.
00:40:42
Speaker
Yeah, I couldn't quite make out what it was. i think it was... No, it wasn't Charlotte. I think it was the other girl who kills or is part of killing Charlotte.
00:40:54
Speaker
Yeah. um Where she's getting... like thrown or like hung by something. Yeah. She was like sitting around. ah Yeah. Overall, really freaky movie.
00:41:06
Speaker
And I'm really glad that it scared you guys. Freaky. Yeah. Movie. Yeah. You ready for the next one?
Unveiling 'Ghost Watch'
00:41:12
Speaker
I'm ready. Our next movie is ghost watch.
00:41:19
Speaker
ghost watch
00:41:22
Speaker
Directed by Leslie Manning, um the synopsis reads as this. For for Halloween 1992, the BBC decides to broadcast an investigation into the supernatural, hosted by TV chat show legend Michael Parkinson.
00:41:35
Speaker
Parkey, assisted by Mike Smith, Sarah Green, and Craig Charles, and a camera crew, attempt to discover the truth behind the most haunted house in Britain. This groundbreaking live television experiment does not go as planned, however.
00:41:51
Speaker
Before we dive into the movie itself, I do want to set a little bit of a scene for our listeners who may not be um familiar with the English and their mysterious ways.
00:42:02
Speaker
um Shout out the UK. um Specifically around four people that this movie focuses on, them being Michael Parkinson, Sarah Green, Michael Smith, and Craig Charles.
00:42:16
Speaker
um The way this movie is presented is basically like a live showing of a ghost hunt on the BBC and the four people on it were public figures on television, radio and BBC especially playing themselves as they would do anything else.
00:42:41
Speaker
Michael Parkinson was, you know, he was kind of like an Ed Sullivan type of guy. He had like a chat show that ran for like 30 years. um He'd have guests on like three at a time and they would come in, discuss things. I mean, this guy was, you know, he was a staple in the household.
00:42:59
Speaker
um This was a guy that you think of like ah Ed Sullivan, like a Jay Leno, um yeah Jimmy Kimmel, one of those types of shows. Sarah Green was a television presenter as well. She also did some acting. But at the time, she was a host for a children's TV show called Going Live.
00:43:20
Speaker
She hosted this show on Saturdays. And I actually believe that this show aired on Saturday. the morning after ghost watch as well. Like the schedule lined up that way. And Michael Smith was, ah Sarah green's, uh, husband or yeah.
00:43:36
Speaker
And, you know they dated subsequent husband. Uh, he hosted sort of like a daytime, Good Morning America type show called Breakfast Time. um You know, I'd like the news, weather, you know, one of those morning talk shows that people watch. And he also hosted ah at Top of the Pops in the 80s. And that was like, you know, the the the music show of what's charting.
00:44:04
Speaker
So he was a huge public figure. And the least famous of the four was Craig Charles. um He was a you know TV presenter, actor, poet, musician, DJ. He kind of did a lot of things, appeared in a lot of places.
00:44:17
Speaker
But he was in like the public eye. I mean, I think of him like a Howard Stern equivalent. Mm-hmm. probably a little less big um from the read that I got just doing some research on him.
00:44:28
Speaker
But he was around. I mean, these were all people that you expected to see on like a you know, big program like this. so And this movie is famous because of the way that the BBC presented it.
00:44:43
Speaker
This was not presented as a made for TV movie. This was presented like a real live ghost hunt. That was broadcasted to the nation.
00:44:55
Speaker
um In the first. Ten minutes of this movie. There's a bit. Where Michael Smith. Who's manning the phone lines. um He's kind of running point on that.
00:45:07
Speaker
Gives a number to call in. to for people to discuss the yeah you know what they're seeing on screen anything they want to give that was the real number for the BBC yep that was the real number that on any one of these shows where you could call in that was the number that would appear on screen and you would call into it So that's cool for 1992 at the time, like there was no reason for anyone to believe, especially if they turned on a little late, that this was anything other than a public broadcast that they were witnessing in real time.
00:45:42
Speaker
The movie gives no indication, but one thing that it was a drama. And that was the, um, the key, the very beginning of the movie.
00:45:54
Speaker
ah When they originally broadcasted it, they had the banner for um Screen One, which was like an anthology series running at the time of drama.
00:46:06
Speaker
And Screen One appeared before it, and then it launched into it. So if you turned it on late... You did not see that this was like a screen one thing and you were under the impression that Michael Parkinson was walking us through the, uh, a real life ghost hunt.
00:46:22
Speaker
Um, so it was pretty unique in that fact. Yeah. Uh, and this movie is famous for the reaction that this, that, that move garnered. Yeah. Even if you were five minutes late, no indication.
00:46:37
Speaker
I mean, even watching it, Years after the fact, over 30 years after the fact, I'm just sitting there like, I could see someone. and I could see it. A hundred percent. Yeah.
00:46:49
Speaker
Like, I'm watching this. This is, I think this movie was fantastic. And in the back of my mind, I'm just like, 92. one Like, they they got people.
00:47:01
Speaker
Yeah. And they got people for real. Think of every dry, stereotypical BBC broadcast. that is what like this movie starts as.
00:47:12
Speaker
you so yeah We have all are going live to Sarah out there, Sarah, what's going on at the house? Oh, it's lovely. you know like We're bobbing for apples. Yeah, we're bobbing for apples. and you know um and And that's what it is. I mean, it just starts so like dry and slow and it just goes. I mean, it made me think of ah Late Night with the Devil.
00:47:40
Speaker
Yeah. But I thought it was just the way they presented this was fantastic. Fantastic. Very immersive. It felt so real.
00:47:52
Speaker
And I think like talking about just like the authenticity behind this, the performances from every single character in this movie is what makes it work.
00:48:04
Speaker
Even the girls. al Even, yeah, all the way to the to the to the girls. Like if there was a single character in this that just did not make it believable, I think the whole thing falls apart.
00:48:16
Speaker
But anyone who had onscreen presence gave it their all, made it feel authentic and sold the story. There were a couple moments kind of towards the end where I was like, oh, well, ah you can tell she's acting and she's not doing a super great job.
00:48:33
Speaker
Like knowing that this movie was not being broadcasted live. But if I was watching this and I thought it was live, I wouldn't have picked up Any of like the the poor acting spots, you would not have picked up on it yeah if you were watching this as it was being broadcasted in real time.
00:48:51
Speaker
the only one that i picked up on for a quote-unquote poor acting performance was like five seconds of one of the children yeah we don't even see her in the frame but she's yelling out for her mom and just that i was just like oh that wasn't that wasn't great but other than that every time they were on screen for me it was one of like sarah's moments where she's like what's happening i can't see like oh said oh oh yeah when it was it was that um it was like I see you. Yeah, but like you're saying, yeah if if I was watching this live, you wouldn't pick up on that.
00:49:24
Speaker
No. You would just be like, she doesn't know. She doesn't know. Yeah, she's freaked out. Yeah. A fun movie fact, a horror fact about this one is it has the same inspiration as The Conjuring 2, the Enfield poltergeist case. Mm-hmm.
00:49:44
Speaker
The Conjuring 2 is the Enfield case, you know, turned into a Conjuring movie. ah It's shot from the perspective of the Warrens, Ed and Lorraine Warren. Yeah.
00:49:55
Speaker
But this one was inspired by that case as well, and I definitely think it takes a much more subdued and realistic slant on it, even though it does, I think, diverge from where that case finished, if my memory serves me correct, because I don't think there was like an apparition like that in the Enfield Poltergeist case.
00:50:18
Speaker
Um, but Mr. Pipes, man, I was going to say, let's talk about the apparition. Mr. Pipes. First off, hate that name.
00:50:29
Speaker
Very scary.
00:50:32
Speaker
it Yeah. And like the the fact that like he was named off the knocking of like the central heating pipes and knowing that like every council house in England is built basic basically the same.
00:50:45
Speaker
They all have those pipes and they all knock. I remember living in England myself. like I remember our pipes knocking and like our radiator like making weird noises and things like that. The one in my room.
00:50:56
Speaker
I specifically remember it just being weird. That's creepy. Yeah. um It's... And so like, I mean, this was a nice little like sleepy neighborhood that it was supposed to be filmed at. I mean it looked like in every just a random British house. Like it wasn't, you know, some house nestled in the woods. And that's actually how the Enfield home was. It was a council house.
00:51:19
Speaker
um If you see a picture of it, it looks just, oh, Okay, like there it is. That sucks because like when you're out there shopping for a home, you want a nice neighborhood.
00:51:31
Speaker
When we watched the first Conjuring movie, if I saw a house like that, I'd be like, uh, don't think I want to live there. Middle of the woods. Do you want to hear a funny story ah about my home buying experience?
00:51:43
Speaker
Yes. So I love this. I'm i a sucker for this stuff. So I was joking around with the realtor about like what she can and can't tell me in, uh, you know, in terms of like past history and, you know weird houses she's had and things like that.
00:52:00
Speaker
And I was like, Oh, so have you ever sold a haunted house? ah She just dropped the conversation right there. Oh, and I think I might, or maybe i asked if mine, the one I was buying was haunted, but, um,
00:52:17
Speaker
She's seen some things.
00:52:20
Speaker
Yeah. Maybe she has, but it's, it's one of those things where, i mean, I'm assuming you guys would want to know if a house that you were moving into was haunted, right?
00:52:32
Speaker
Yes. It'd be the first thing I ask. I was just about to say that. Yeah. If I'm about to sign the papers and then I ask the question and I don't like the answer, I'm putting the pen down.
00:52:47
Speaker
You would probably have to incur a fee. You'd lose your deposit. I'll pay it. I'm not getting haunted. Yeah, I've seen enough of these movies.
00:52:57
Speaker
Mr. Pipes is one of two names that i don't like. Mr. Pipes and Glory Hole. Is there really no other term they could have used?
00:53:08
Speaker
That did not age well. This is Great Britain, so that probably means something totally different over there. Maybe it's literal. and And what you're referring to is probably like. The Willy Lounge or something like that. hat Mr. Pipes, though, I mean.
00:53:26
Speaker
i could see a kid calling something like that, Mr. Pipes. It makes sense. the The Mr. Pipes backstory. okay so. oh well I'm going to try and not spoil this movie too much because I actually think it's really worth the time to find it and watch it.
00:53:42
Speaker
Because it's it's just done so uniquely, but. Throughout the movie, they take phone calls from listeners in air quotes, but they're all staged. They're all preplanned. What? Yeah. um But it it adds to the authenticity and the movie starts to reveal the plot a little bit.
00:54:02
Speaker
Through these phone calls and the last one with the Mr. Pipes origin story. Just oh my goodness. if That was shivers down my spine. Yeah. Yeah.
00:54:13
Speaker
Just nuts. um There's an IMDb trivia here saying that the ghost stories mentioned outside of the pipe story are all quote-unquote true and were recorded by members of the public.
00:54:25
Speaker
Ugh.
00:54:27
Speaker
Yeah, there there are some weird ones. So people brought their ghost stories. The lore drop of the the secret sublease was horrific. That was a gut punch. Yeah. Well, how do you know? I was the social worker.
00:54:41
Speaker
Whoa!
00:54:44
Speaker
Um, god I'm sure it was that flat. Like I'm sure of it. Uh, another fun fact about this movie. It earned the dubious honor of being the first TV program to be cited in the British medical journal as having caused post-traumatic stress disorder in children.
00:55:00
Speaker
Yeah. um It cited two kids. had that in our show notes, actually. um Two of them um and directly references Ghostwatch. It also referenced another TV show, but Ghostwatch appeared twice.
00:55:16
Speaker
um But the the ultimate conclusion of the article was that it's inappropriate to label it as true PTSD and the children were just having like an anxiety event related to the movie.
00:55:28
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Which is, you know, I think that that's totally fair because I've had similar reactions to similar things. So definitely don't think it was PTSD, but I can totally see why a kid who stayed up past their bedtime and watched this would be absolutely terrified.
00:55:47
Speaker
And I think it's a genuinely pretty creepy movie. Like I was, there were a couple of things that scared me. Yeah. The voice. Okay, yeah, if we were going to talk about highlights, I wanted to shout out that scene of the host and the doctor going over the tapes.
00:56:04
Speaker
Yeah. Anytime they went and reviewed, can we go find that tape? Like, we don't need to destroy the tape. She was the star of the show. The doctor was the star of the show. Hashtag, I believe women.
00:56:17
Speaker
Yeah, she was great performance from the doctor. For sure. She was such like an advocate in there and you could, she was fighting for her life. I, the funniest performance I think is Michael Parkinson. Cause it's like the whole time he was just like, well, as you can see here, something's happened. it's just like a dickish skeptic, which I mean, I get, but yeah, it was fun seeing that onscreen relationship.
00:56:42
Speaker
their their Their dichotomy I thought was really well. Especially when he's talking, ah the doctor goes like, I think it's is one of the, it's Suzanne and Lily? Is Lily the other one?
00:56:54
Speaker
We'll her Lily. No, not Sarah. Sarah was the doctor. No, Sarah was the presenter. We'll call the daughters Suzanne and Lily. Sure. So in the beginning, she says, okay, maybe this apparition is tied to Suzanne. She's going off of that theory for a while.
00:57:08
Speaker
Something happens with Lily and she changes her pin. She's like, okay, maybe it's Lily. And then you can see Michael Parkinson's just like... almost having enough of it and it's getting really skeptical he's like first you said Suzanne then you said Lily you actually don't know do you and just that a admit of defeat from the doctor just I don't which is fair for sure also it's uh Kim Kim you were close Kim Suzanne there's an eye I wanted to read off a couple of ah YouTube comments I found um from a couple different videos about Ghostwatch and talking about the entire experience.
00:57:47
Speaker
I was 10, 32 years later, and I've never forgotten this. I remember watching this live as a child. I have been chasing this high ever since. Nothing compares to the thrill.
00:57:59
Speaker
My parents happened to be out leaving just me and my brothers at home that night. And then this last one reads, I'm 43 now and I saw this as a kid. I still freak out a bit when I hear cats howling because of this TV show.
00:58:11
Speaker
I, yeah, I can only imagine like how incredible it would have been. Like, it was broadcast as Halloween night. So like, let's say you're in high school, you know, little or 14, 15, you're too cool for trick or treating and dressing up, but you stay in, you watch ghost watch with your friends and you're watching it live and you're just watching it unfold.
00:58:32
Speaker
Like, Oh, like let's see if they find ghosts. Like, and then just you watch this movie play out. It would be incredible. And this is that this was the day and age where there's no internet, Twitter, you know, oh, this is BS, like, guys, like this is fake. like Like, no, you have to find out, like, the next morning what happened.
00:58:52
Speaker
Yeah, imagine just showing up to school the next day, being traumatized with all your friends, talking about what you all just watched. I would honestly, i'd give anything to go back in time, erase my memory of this movie and experience it like that.
00:59:06
Speaker
If you want to know... So people did call into the line while this was happening. What was supposed to happen was you call in and then the caller would say that the movie was fake, but they were interested in hearing about your true ghost story because they were going to solicit them for, you know, future episodes of ghost watch. If that's you know what they decided to do, people did call in.
00:59:30
Speaker
I've seen, her I've it's unverified. I've been able, I haven't been able to verify this in the research I was doing this morning for it, but.
00:59:39
Speaker
Allegedly, ah million people called in, including Michael Parkinson's mom. Really? Yeah. That's crazy. um But do you know how many people were operating the switchboard? Take a guess.
00:59:57
Speaker
A thousand. Five. How many people called in? Like a million. That's insane. Allegedly a million. So the you have five people operating the switchboard.
01:00:09
Speaker
And they're taking these calls. What do you think that the people who called in heard when they weren't getting their phone picked up?
01:00:20
Speaker
Just ringing. a dial tone yeah all you heard was a silent dial tone as you're watching this movie unfold because no one can get to your call and you're not hearing that the movie is fake i mean if you're a concerned parent and you're seeing you know this unfolding on screen like and stuff is happening and it's like oh my god like and you call the bbc and be like what is going on you're supposed to be heard with like a reassuring message um and nothing you're met with crickets Yeah.
01:00:49
Speaker
Allegedly they considered pulling it the day of. They considered pulling the movie like before it aired, before it aired. Like some people thought it was a bad idea and that's how they ended up putting the screen one title card before it.
01:01:05
Speaker
That's kind of what they settled on is they were not going to pull it, but it's like people were a little like there was some forethought into like, how are people going to react to this? yeah. I mean, we've all heard the story of the reading of of the Worlds over the radio and the subsequent mass hysteria event where a guy shot a water tower.
01:01:25
Speaker
Yeah. um they they I'm sure whoever in the BBC was thinking it had it in mind. But I mean, that being said, is this one of like the best pranks on an audience that has ever been done? Bro, they got pranked. For sure.
01:01:40
Speaker
It has to be. Like it's this for the BBC of all companies to do this, to air this, like they're so serious and, you know, proper and British for them to like whip out ghost watch and just throw it on the British public and being like,
01:01:58
Speaker
Here you go. It's live. Like is incredible. And it's one of those things that I don't think we'll ever see replicated. i don't think we will. There's no way to pull it off in modern day. Right.
01:02:11
Speaker
So the director of this movie obviously credits War of the Worlds for some of the inspiration for this. And the filmmakers behind the Blair Witch Project cite Ghostwatch as inspiration as well.
01:02:25
Speaker
I mean, it's just for for a tv a made for TV movie. This was back when like made for TV movies weren't like Netflix quality. They were like cheap TV quality. Yep.
01:02:37
Speaker
For a made for TV movie to be this good. I was floored by it. How many times did you guys see Mr. Pipes in the background? None.
01:02:49
Speaker
None. I'm not even sure. i'm Maybe one. Only when they were reviewing the footage of like the the the window scene when they were drawing like his outline behind the curtain.
01:02:59
Speaker
Yeah, there was... i Do you think that the outline, that the frame she drew the outline on was the frame with Mr. Pipes in it Because I don't think it was. I don't think it was No. It looked like a different frame. Yeah, she messed up the outline.
01:03:11
Speaker
Bad drawer. Yeah, terrible. She dropped the ball. I copy caught him three times, but the director notes that there are 13. Yeah. What? Isn't that insane?
01:03:23
Speaker
So there's the there's the curtain. there was This is the one that freaked me out the most. They're in the kitchen. um And they're about to get to Sarah. I caught him twice. Yeah, they're about to get to Sarah, but they're going off the back window.
01:03:36
Speaker
And you can see him in the reflection of the back window, but it's very quick. And then another similar one when they're in the the kids' rooms. and And he pans back. He pans back on that one. So I think that one was the most obvious one. Yeah, that's the other one. But I have no idea what the other 10 were because I was looking. i I need to go back and rewatch it and see if I can find all 13 of them. 13 is crazy. Yeah. That's nuts.
01:03:56
Speaker
don't like it. That is. Oh, that just blew this movie open for me. Oh, my goodness. Oh, I'm so hyped up. That is really cool. I really, really enjoyed this movie.
01:04:07
Speaker
And we'll never get anything like it again. Yeah, it's it's truly once in a lifetime thing. And unfortunately, a part of its reputation comes from what happened after.
01:04:22
Speaker
um Where, you know, we know it now that it was fake, but um tragically, someone did end their life over this movie. That's right. That's crazy.
01:04:35
Speaker
This was a person who a young man who had a learning disability um and their house had a central heating system that knocked on the pipes. And this movie scared him so bad that it ultimately led to him taking his own life.
01:04:51
Speaker
That is tragic. Yeah. It's awful. um The family was allowed to seek like judicial review of it to find like any sort of culpability within the the BBC for it.
01:05:05
Speaker
They were one of 34 complaints sent to the um whatever their version of the FCC is. The BCC. Yeah.
01:05:18
Speaker
But ah there they were one of like 34 complaints or something, and they tried to initially dismiss them all. But apparently, according to the family, the suicide note directly references ghosts.
01:05:28
Speaker
Wow. Yeah. Just super tragic. Um, it's a bit of ah a shift to go from saying like, this movie is incredible. We'll never get anything like it. And that happened. But I, I think that really made this movie like kind of like almost like an urban legend.
01:05:46
Speaker
I hadn't heard of this movie until actually I downloaded letterboxd and I searched like found footage. And then what was the highest rate I found footage when I believe this is like top five, if not the highest that I saw.
01:06:01
Speaker
um ah definitely up there. And I remember clicking it because I'm like, what is this? and Never heard of it. And then I started like researching it and I didn't spoil the plot for myself, but it was like, like people thought this was real. It's like, Oh yeah.
01:06:15
Speaker
Like this is, this is that cannibal Holocaust type movie where and someone actually thought this was real. It's like, I have to watch this. I have to watch it. It was pretty low on IMDb's top hundred found footage. was like the seventies or eighties, which I was surprised by.
01:06:30
Speaker
Whoever made that list doesn't know Ball. But Ganja Masylum was also there. So we got two movies in the top 100. Nice. I wanted to read this fact that I thought was a little funny. On the night of the transmission, actress Jillian Bevan, who plays the doctor, returned home from the wrap party to find an answer machine message from friend and fellow actress...
01:06:51
Speaker
Dame Judi Dench, who jokingly chastised her for inadvertently spoiling her enjoyment of Ghostwatch, having naturally recognized her in the role of Dr. Lynn Pascal and thereby deducing that the show was in fact staged and not live.
01:07:03
Speaker
Dang. So Judi Dench got it spoiled because she has too many friends. I love Judi Dench. I know that girl. She's our national treasure. Dame Judi Dench. I guess I probably should have been referring to Michael Parkinson as Sir Michael Parkinson because he was knighted.
01:07:18
Speaker
Do you guys think this would have gone too far? The writers wanted the story to go a little bit further with Parkinson claiming at the end of the movie, the ghost is probably in your house. I think the way it ends, I think it ends basically that way.
01:07:34
Speaker
I think so too. Like it, I think it went that far without explicitly saying it, anything like that. Were you guys disturbed or scared at all?
01:07:46
Speaker
Or were you just along for the ride? There were some bits that got me. There were some bits that actually got me. The voice got me. Voice. Yeah. the the The Mr. Pipes call about his backstory actually got me. um Seeing him the two times I did got me.
01:08:06
Speaker
But the the reason the voice got me, and I can send this to you guys later, is it sounded too much like this one EVP that one of my favorite podcasts got.
01:08:19
Speaker
When they went to the Sally house in Kansas. Oh no. What is that? It's like a really haunted house. No. What's an EVP? Electronic voice phenomenon. Like the, like the ghost reader that they had in like the ganja asylum. Okay.
01:08:33
Speaker
Well, no, like an EVP would be like, if I'm recording something and then like we played it back and you heard like, get out. Like something like that, you know? Okay. Like it's like a, like a voice caught on something or like a disembodied voice.
01:08:44
Speaker
Subscribe to lost in the frame.
01:08:49
Speaker
we love you I'll quote the movie and say, fif i fo
01:08:57
Speaker
no, no, thank you. o Yeah, this was, I think, less of disturbance and more of. I don't know if appreciation is the right word. Intrigue, maybe?
01:09:10
Speaker
Intrigue, appreciation for the format in which it was premiered. And I mean, the overall scope of the movie itself was like an achievement.
01:09:23
Speaker
Very well made. It was so small, but massive at the same time. Yeah. And like we made the earlier comparison to Late Night with the Devil. And I liked Late Night with the Devil. But... this is the sauce that that movie needed.
01:09:36
Speaker
we couldn't hat We couldn't have it, but like that's the closest that we would get. But now watching this, I'm just like, this is the blueprint. This was it. I mean, felt real about as real as like a movie like that can get.
01:09:49
Speaker
Yeah, it did for sure. And i and this is coming from someone who believes in this crap like that movie. that it That is about as real as you're ever going to get from like a production in terms of the feel. It it just felt like we were along for the ride of something that went way out of control that wasn't supposed to.
01:10:08
Speaker
There's a documentary to this that I want to watch called Behind the Curtains. I need this on DVD. Arrow Video did a limited release last year of a Blu-ray edition of Ghostwatch and it's sold out everywhere.
01:10:21
Speaker
I will find it. That's probably like $100. I found one on eBay for $140. not going to do that, but I will find fairly priced one and purchase it. The dream is to see it at half price books in the rare section. i This is one I will be looking for now.
01:10:37
Speaker
I saw a 25th anniversary edition of Cannibal Holocaust. i was like, oh my God. I almost bought it, but then I'm like, I can't.
01:10:46
Speaker
I should go back and buy it. Who cares? if If someone comes over and they can't handle my esoteric movie taste, like. Don't invite a date. Tachi, how did this movie make you feel? Were you disturbed?
01:11:03
Speaker
ah I wasn't, I wasn't. I'm still on the fence of of how I feel about the paranormal because I've had things happen around me that I really cannot explain.
01:11:15
Speaker
like Like, sure, maybe my brain is just doing something. it's It's making me envision these sounds or these sights or, you know, whatever.
01:11:29
Speaker
But based on my lived experience, i I feel like i can I cannot rule out paranormal activity as being completely fiction.
01:11:42
Speaker
That's because it's not. And it's... So in a way, movies like this will always disturb me because I've had you know these really weird things happen.
01:11:55
Speaker
And so... Yeah, I was disturbed, but also knowing that this was just a production, it's just a movie, I can just remind myself that it's not real, that this is not real, but...
01:12:11
Speaker
things close to it could be. I don't know. I'm sorry you went through those things. Yeah. I don't recommend potential ghost encounters to anyone. They're not too fun.
01:12:23
Speaker
If I'm ever in a situation where someone offers me a ghost encounter, I will politely decline. I think it's for the best. I'm not really recovered, but it's okay.
01:12:35
Speaker
So like when you, I know horror movies aren't your, your go-to. Do you tend to steer away from the paranormal? Do you think you would align more to like the supernatural?
01:12:49
Speaker
If I can, yes. Okay. But like, like I've said before, like hereditary is just so well made that I can't do anything but appreciate like, how good and captivating it is and, and just how deeply disturbing a lot of this plot points are.
01:13:06
Speaker
Yeah. Um, so if I can avoid and stuff like this, I will, but sometimes I just have to watch. i I have to know what the people are talking about. There we go.
01:13:17
Speaker
It's, I think it's kind of funny that we have like two different perspectives on this. that come to like wildly different conclusions. Cause it's like as someone in my life or someone who in their life has also experienced it I can't get enough of it.
01:13:29
Speaker
Like I'm fascinated by it. And it's funny, like our different reactions to it. I wonder what that says about us. It's where that was' very interesting. It's very interesting. I get to watch like two sides of the same coin because I can't say that I've had like a full on lived experience where I thought I experienced something paranormal.
01:13:48
Speaker
we don doll I've got one. Yeah, I've got the doll. But even then, like comparatively to you two, you guys have it. But I love these types of movies.
01:13:59
Speaker
I don't know how I would react today to an actual situation where I thought some paranormal activity was afoot. But I can tell you now, doesn't sound like good time. look camera go, well, that was strange. That just happened.
01:14:14
Speaker
He's right behind me, isn't he? You hear it ghost talking. Say that again. it's He's a funny ghost.
01:14:23
Speaker
Oh, that scared the devil out of me. The devil shows up. Say that again.
01:14:30
Speaker
Would you investigate if you heard a strange sound? Would you look? oh
01:14:39
Speaker
Maybe. Like, let's say your your closet door right behind you opens and closes. Would you open it back up? I think, no, I think I'd walk away. Okay. I think I'd walk away and put the headphones down and I'd calmly walk away.
01:14:55
Speaker
Gotcha. Oh, yeah. And also, like, I like going to haunted houses. And therere I think they're a lot of fun, but I act like such a baby in them.
01:15:07
Speaker
We have to go this year. we don't have to do anything.
01:15:15
Speaker
Lost in the frame fan meetup. You can't say no. I didn't sign anything. You don't have to. I've never been to a haunted house and I would like to keep that streak.
01:15:26
Speaker
and continue
01:15:29
Speaker
um Anything else that you guys want to shout out from this movie? I want to know what happened to um don't know if it was the cameraman or like the sound guy whoever got wounded because it happened so fast and kind of off screen.
01:15:43
Speaker
But I want to know what happened. Well, yeah, I couldn't really like make out what flew out to call. I saw some bleeding. Yeah. On the air, but I couldn't fully make it out because then the next time we see him is on a stretcher. So hopefully he's OK. Yeah.
01:15:57
Speaker
mean, this really happened. So apparently true. That's what they're telling me. Yeah, I hope Sarah and the cameraman are fine. You want to hear a crazy story?
01:16:08
Speaker
Yeah. Sarah and Smitty, the married couple there, before Ghostwatch, they got in a helicopter crash. I read that, and he was the the pilot, correct? Yeah.
01:16:23
Speaker
That still wasn't as scary as Ghostwatch. I'm glad they're right. not. You guys want to rate this? Yeah. think I'm ready. do. We're all going to be the same. Probably. It's going to piss me off.
01:16:34
Speaker
Four out five for me. Four of five. Four out of five. my Hearing that Mr. Pipes was in there 13 times. I kind of want to give it a four and a half.
01:16:47
Speaker
and That is really neat. I love like that. Because looking, but couldn't find him. Yeah, going to have to do some digging in your butt, twin.
01:16:58
Speaker
um Thank you. Thank you. We're all aligned and we're all scared. So that's that's our final four episode, right? Not even close.
01:17:10
Speaker
Again, Tachi, I am so sorry. It's okay. To put you through this, but don't worry. On the other side of this are holiday movies. The Holdovers is over there. Paul Giamatti is calling for us and he will help you.
01:17:27
Speaker
I want a hug from the chef. the the chef but Before we, before we wrap up, let's give our listeners some recommendations for what to do after a horror movie. I don't know if you guys have any rituals that you like to do after watching horror movie. If it disturbed you a bit, I have one.
01:17:45
Speaker
I have one. Go ahead. I usually like to draw a pentagram on the floor. so Do a little Ouija action. Light up 13 candles. Yeah. How'd you know?
01:17:58
Speaker
So don't go to Alex's house for Halloween. Um, I like to watch something a little lighthearted. Maybe some SpongeBob.
Sweet Relief and Unwanted Watch Lists
01:18:06
Speaker
Lighthearted. Have something sweet. Have something sweet. I like having something sweet afterwards.
01:18:11
Speaker
Yeah. That's a good I remember after watching The Witch, I watched SpongeBob. Nice. Because that one got me. The voices, just sullen, dark, satin-like voices it will always will always get me.
01:18:27
Speaker
It's inexplicably on my watch list.
01:18:31
Speaker
Why inexplicably? Cause I don't want to watch it, but feel like I have to, mean, I like on a Taylor joy, so yeah, no one's forcing you.
Unusual Outro and Personal Ghost Stories
01:18:41
Speaker
Does that wrap it up for our first horror episode?
01:18:44
Speaker
I believe it does, but instead of our usual outro, i want to end on something different. Okay. If you guys are cool with that. Yeah. There is ah scene in Ghostwatch where Sarah Green is talking about an encounter that she has regarding a dream.
01:19:00
Speaker
And someone listening is going to recognize the story a lot because that someone is my mom. And so I want to close it on this ghost story she has.
01:19:11
Speaker
Well, my dad was deployed to Iraq. My mom was asleep one night and she had a dream, a very, very vivid dream where she saw winged victory, ah the statue, the headless, armless angel statue um that, you know, I believe it's in the the British Museum, or at least it was at the time. if you look up at a ah picture of it, it's very distinct.
01:19:38
Speaker
and When she woke up that morning, she said someone died. And she called my dad. And this was back when calling soldiers overseas was a really hard thing to do. And she got a hold of my dad finally.
01:19:53
Speaker
And he was like, hey, like, what's up? Why are calling? Trying to be with the boys in Iraq. He was like, well, I had a dream that the angel of death came to visit me and let me know that someone died.
01:20:07
Speaker
And he goes, how did you know that?
01:20:10
Speaker
He's like, how did you know? so like did you Did you really? And she's like, yeah. He's like, well, someone did die last night. And we haven't even notified the family yet.
01:20:20
Speaker
Good night.
01:20:23
Speaker
Bye.