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HORROR'S WEIRD EXPERIMENTS w/ JOSH MILLICAN
63 Plays4 months ago
Josh Millican joins the podcast to talk about Weird Science in Horror, including his new book, TELEPORTASM, along with the movies THE FLY and JOHN DIES AT THE END.
Grab some soy sauce, a notebook to keep track of all of Josh's movie recommendations, and enjoy as we take a wild little trip together.
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Transcript
Introduction to Killer Mediums Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey, listeners, this is William Sterling, and you're listening to the Killer Mediums podcast, where we talk about all your favorite horror of tropes and how they manifest across all your favorite mediums of entertainment. Today, we are talking to Josh Millikan about weird science and horror. We're going to dive into Josh's new book, Teleportasm, as well as John Dies at the End and Cronenberg's The Fly. ah We're going to be dropping some spoilers for each of them as we talk, so if you're a super spoiler of ours, just be warned about that. uh but with the spoiler tags out of the way here we go let's get spooky burners tied bells to everybody in the morgue so if they had a thing they knew somebody down there wasn't quite right
00:01:02
Speaker
Josh, how the hell are you doing today?
Josh Millikan's Journey in Horror
00:01:04
Speaker
I'm doing fantastic, William. Thank you so much for having me out. Of course, of course. um For anybody that doesn't know you, can you give us just a brief introduction to who you are, what your niche is in the horror community, all that jazz? Yeah, absolutely. yeah know If you've already heard of me, you might know me as Josh from Dread Central. Dread Central is a legacy horror site, a really big name. been around for over a decade. And I worked there for several years ah working my way all the way up to editor in chief. I did a lot of film festival coverage. I did a lot of interviews and I did a lot of news. So my name was, um you know, in horror circles on ah on a daily basis, you know, getting tweeted and commented on and circling around.
00:01:56
Speaker
I became a father a couple of years ago and since then I decided to embark on a new chapter in my life um writing books and Teleportasm is my third book to come out since 2002. So I feel like I'm doing pretty well. It's my third novel, excuse me, it's actually my fifth book, because I've also written a novelization and assembled a collection of my interviews from over my time at Dread Central. You know, and during the ah early days of the pandemic, ah Dread Central was really at the forefront of doing a lot of streaming content, sort of trying to do online panels to make up for
00:02:39
Speaker
you know, all of the film releases that were happening and all the convention appearances that normally play into a film's release. So, you know, got a got a chance to stream and, you know, get my face out there in addition to my name and got to meet just so many wonderful people. So that's who I am in horror. Yeah. Let's sit on the Dread Central thing for just a second, because like i've I've got a very like niche group of listeners here. So like, if anybody's listening to this, we know who Dread Central is. So while you were working there, do you have any like cool story that stands out to you or any interview that you did that you were like, man, that one was just fucking cool. Well, you know, my collection of interviews, it's called the Dreadful Years, you know, that um and not the fact that they were all assembled during my years at Dread Central.
00:03:29
Speaker
And you you're really putting me on the spot because I talked to so many amazing people. I had just really wonderful conversations with Kevin Bacon, with Crispin Glover, with David Arquette. You know, a lot of guys kind of my own age, they're all a little bit older than me, but I'm sort of on the tail end of Gen X. So I feel like I just had a really amazing conversation with those guys who all have deep roots and horror. So it's just been fascinating. you know i I cherish every ah i cherished every day of it. you know I worked very hard, but they say when you love what you do, you don't work a day in your life, something along those lines. And it definitely rang true for me. It was um it was just, I loved it. you know
00:04:13
Speaker
I didn't create Dread Central. Dread Central existed, you know, before I came into it. It was aspirationally I aspired to work at Dread Central. I aspired to be part of that team. So the fact that I was and that I got to be so influential for a while. I'm really proud of the time I spent there and the work I did there. Yeah, that's awesome. It's always good to like find people in the community that general genuinely love what they do because like horror is one of these genres that like people on the outside keep poo-pooing it, but people like anybody that's in horror like genuinely has a love for it. and yeah I don't know where I was going with that thought.
00:04:56
Speaker
Also, good answer with not ah with not picking a favorite child. or and um All right, so let's dig into the topic for
Weird Science and Horror Synergy
00:05:05
Speaker
today. We are here to talk about weird experiments in horror and weird science in horror. So with this topic in general, um you've got a bunch of background in horror. What makes funky science and horror such a good crossroads to play in each other's sandboxes? Well, I kind of come by this brand of scientific horror ah by way of its connection to body horror.
00:05:32
Speaker
and I look at body horror as a spectrum and at one end of the spectrum you have the fantastic and I'm talking about Clive Barker and his Cenobites and things like that where you ah go beyond what is physically possible in exploring the possibilities of what the human body can endure and potential challenges that the human body could come up against in these fantastic situations. at the complete opposite end of body horror. You have medical horror, scientific horror, firmly based in reality. And that is where you have our tours like David Cronenberg. And I say firmly based in reality, which isn't you know exclusively true. It's also speculative reality. That's where the science fiction comes into play.
00:06:17
Speaker
But this is where you're talking about um the effect of science on the human body. So it's not like a high tech thing. I don't want anyone thinking that, you know, today we're going to be talking a lot of technical jargon or that when they pick up teleportation, they're going to be reading something that's science heavy. I think of it as very low tech science because, you know, no matter how elaborate the backdrop, the the focus really is how the science affects the human body. And so that's kind of my way into this, you know, like, you know, science and horror is huge. We could be talking about aliens. And I think that's what most people think when they, you know, think about science fiction or science and horror.
00:06:59
Speaker
spaceships and things like that. But I'm really fascinated by looking at technology as it pertains to the human body, like I already described. And I'm also a huge fan of what I call, and maybe someone else called it this, I don't know if I claimed this phrase, but I call it narcohor, which is, you know, some sort of drug or addiction element to it. And that, of course, plays right into the same body horror concepts. that I already discussed. And when you get into narco horror, it can transverse the spectrum because, you know, ah narcotics are pharmaceuticals and you can discuss the chemistry of what's going on in the brain, but narcotics produce these hallucinogenic experience that go into the complete opposite realm of fantasy, like I was mentioning earlier with ah writers like Clay Barker. So this is what fascinates me about science and horror. This is kind of the intersection
00:07:51
Speaker
the avenues that I find most interesting to explore in terms of my own writing and my own reflections. um And I hope that you know people who feel similarly will check out Teleportasm. Yeah, as you were talking, that was the big connection I was making. like every Every ball you just threw in the air, Teleportasm knocks down like so hard. ah The narco horror and addiction and like things like that, it gets into that. the ah Not future tech, but like modern tech. like We could go find this tech now, like hypothetically, ah realism-based. like You get into that. like the The mechanism for Teleportasm is a VHS tape.
00:08:32
Speaker
We're not going very far, very far into the future with that. right um So typically what I do in these interviews is we talk about the theme for a little while and then we dig into the comps first and then we kind of build up to ah at the guest's work. I want to put that on its head this time because with Teleportasm, A, you've already done some of the groundwork for some of the stuff I wanna talk about with Teleportasm. But B, as we read Teleportasm, your knowledge about this genre and the amount of references and the amount of homages built into it are just spectacular. ah hum And I feel like it's gonna be hard for me to talk about the fly at this point without referencing part of Teleportasm. Yeah, absolutely.
00:09:22
Speaker
So let's start with Teleportasm.
Exploring Teleportasm's Structure
00:09:24
Speaker
Can you give listeners the short pitch? What is this book? four friends, it's 2012, four friends unearthed a unique VHS tape that when viewed causes short distance teleportation with euphoric after effects. It feels good. It feels really good, better than anything most people have ever experienced or would hope to experience. So that's kind of the problem because people start becoming reckless
00:09:53
Speaker
with this device, this technology. Of course, people start making copies and when you're talking about a VHS medium, you know that ah each copy ah becomes more and more inferior. So therein lies the crux of the drama of teleportation. And like you said, it's it's an homage to teleportation of horror. which is a very, in and of itself, a very niche ah subsect of the science horror subgenre. I want to start with the form of this book because Teleportasm is really unique from my point of view because it is a novella, all right, everybody? It it tells a cohesive story start to but start to end.
00:10:39
Speaker
But it reads with all of these asides built in also that build out the whole world of this story so much more than we usually see in a novella. um You get a sense of everything that this videotape is going to touch while also being able to track these four main characters' stories. So I wanted to lead you with a question of What made ah kind of this, and I want to call it a piecemeal approach to storytelling, but that's not quite right, but everybody kind of go along with me here for a second. What made all of these different short stories kind of coming together and coalescing for you the right way to tell this story instead of just like hard focus on the four characters and just watch them the whole time?
00:11:25
Speaker
Sure. I mean, the short answer is that it was very organic. You know, I call it a pseudo anthology and you can compare it to the Martian Chronicles, which I think is a very famous pseudo anthology. Each chapter is set up self-contained, but it's you can't just pick and choose which ones you want to read. You need to read it in order and then step back and get the long view when you put all the pieces together in the puzzle. So, you know, I knew that there was a core story with these ah four very fun main characters talking about Barry, Frankie, Snaps and Lars. And I knew that they had a kind of like a fun intro and kind of an emotional, a funny and emotional story arc. And I knew I wanted it to to feature them. And I knew I wanted, you know, I wanted this to be a story about
00:12:18
Speaker
for friends who go out one night and whoops, we accidentally fucked up the entire world. You know, it's a thought that, you know, when we went out to get stoned Friday night, we were going to end up, you know, fucking up the whole world. So, you know, with all of this in mind, I kind of threw all of my ideas up against the wall, metaphorically, so to speak. I mean, you can imagine a wall covered with Post-it notes. where you can imagine, you know, one of those conspiracy theorist boards with the red line going here and there. I just had all of these ideas. And in addition to telling the um the emotional anchor of the story, I got to go in all of these different places. So you're seeing ah basically the beginning of the end of the world. And then you're jumping into the future to kind of see the effects, the unintended consequences and how it's spread far beyond
00:13:13
Speaker
these four main characters. And, you know, I think as Telecorteism progresses, you realize that it's and spread far beyond even what you initially imagined as the reader.
00:13:26
Speaker
That is a fantastic explanation. Okay, so then pushing this a little bit farther, it was fun to me reading it how there were there was a wide range of short stories being told too. You weren't just focused on like body horror, for example. like you Like you said, you kind of got into apocalyptic horror at a certain point um and you got into like, ah disappearances around the house kind of horror at a certain point and there were all these different avenues that kind of came into play. um So I guess my next question based on all of this would be
00:14:04
Speaker
um Were there stories that you wanted to include in here that you couldn't quite find a spot to fit in? Absolutely. you know there were There were so many elements that I threw against the wall that there are at least three full chapters but alan wastufka that ah founder of shortwave short waveve publishing who put out the Killer VHS series. We just decided for the sake of keeping it to around 30,000 words. and And since we had so many really strong chapters that we felt so good about,
00:14:39
Speaker
We just put these aside, and that isn't to say any of these aren't as strong as any of the chapters that made it. So there's an entire chapter about the prom that the nurses kind of allude to. In chapter two, there's a chapter where there is a 9-11 style terrorist event ah perpetrated with the sequence, the videotape. um There was another actually the the the chapter about the prank crew was and initially much more straightforward. It was basically like a ah retelling of their video fun with teleportation. It's kind of a story within a story. But then I brought it back even another step.
00:15:22
Speaker
and made it about people watching this video within this novella. Oh, man, it's psychedelic. But yeah, I think, um you know, if Teleportasm really, really hits, then Alan and I will probably talk about releasing some of the other chapters as, you know, standalone short stories connected to it, you know, a Teleportasm story, or maybe a chapbook or something. But, you know, everything's in the air,
Teleportasm's VHS Tape Discovery
00:15:47
Speaker
because there were also ideas I never got to, like, I just love the sound of this. I never explored this. But I wanted to have something where I could use the word telepornography.
00:15:58
Speaker
yeah Kind of writes a chapter right there, right? Yeah. Yeah, there were absolutely avenues that we thought of, you know, that were even explored to the point of these chapters were edited. um But we just put them aside in favor of this, you know, really tight, lean and mean story. And like you said, a lot of people have said that, you know, for such a short story, it really goes to, to you know, a remarkable amount of distance, you know, But I hope it doesn't feel dense. you know I don't want people to feel like they're ah you know being overwhelmed with new characters and scenarios. Hopefully it's lighter than that.
00:16:40
Speaker
Yeah, no, that was my impression of it, was that it it kept me on my toes and it kept me... I think as an author, you always hope that you can get a sort of story where people end one chapter and they immediately have to start the next chapter, right? Yeah, absolutely. That's the hope. They don't end a chapter and then go to sleep for the night. I think Teleportasm did a really cool job of that for me because it wasn't... that I would get to the end of the chapter and have to know what happens to those characters next. It was this really unique twist where I got to the end of the chapter and then I was like, okay, I need to know what curveball he throws next. Because I know the next chapter isn't dealing with these people anymore, or if it does, it'll be like way in the future with these people. But every single chapter is just such a departure from the one before it in a good way that it was like, all right, I need to see where his creativity goes. And it keeps dragging you along like well past your bedtime.
00:17:33
Speaker
But I really appreciate you saying that because, you know, I did want every chapter to offer something new and I wanted to kind of start with the existing war around teleportation. which is the Philadelphia experiment, you know, ah the Philadelphia experiment ah of legend I'm talking about, you know, the Philadelphia experiment, urban legend hasn't been around since World War Two. This legend, you know, about events in World War Two actually surfaced in the 60s or maybe even the 70s, but um
00:18:04
Speaker
You know, it really is kind of like the basis of teleportation or, you know, everyone has the image of ah this ship teleporting and rematerializing with sailors fused into the bulkhead. I think that's ah is something that we instantly think of. And so I use that as my starting point. And from there, you know, I felt the need to go someplace completely new or up to the ante or be somehow original in each and every case moving forward. Yeah, i don't I don't think we've really talked about the mechanics of Teleportasm yet. So with this story, you've got a videotape that people watch and when they watch it, what happens to them? Not to take your thunder away from you. Yeah, not at all.
00:18:50
Speaker
boom Great to discuss. So, yeah, and you watch the video and if all goes well, you're teleported six feet ah due north, you know, so ah you might be just kind of like tossed across the room or if you're on a large custom made couch, you'll just pop from one end of the couch to the other. um And, you know, a lot of theories are put forward as to how this works. You know, maybe it has something to do with, um you know, ah ah targeted coordinates and some some triggering of brainwave functions. There's some sort of ah organic element mixed with the this sort of technology of strobing images and frequencies.
00:19:32
Speaker
But no one really understands. But the thing is, it feels so good that it really doesn't matter. You know, that's really kind of secondary, you know, and and that's one of the innovations I'm actually im most proud of, you know, because I think the idea of teleportation feeling good. It's kind of like right there on the tip of everyone's tongue, you know, in the fly, which I'm sure we'll get to shortly. You know, ah ah Jeff Goldblum's character feels a lot better after teleporting, but we find out that's because he's absorbed. another entity you know but the idea of being you know dematerialized at the atomic level and then reassembled instantaneously and the implications of that i was just like you know what if that felt just really fucking good and that just became such a fun book and that just really opened it up thematically to the idea of teleportation as a drug yeah
00:20:24
Speaker
I remember, so I think I first heard about the book when I had Alan on this
Concept of Six Feet North Teleportation
00:20:29
Speaker
podcast. We were, we were talking about the killer VHS series in general. And he, he talked about Melonhead mayhem for a little while. And he talked about Brian McCauley's, um, candy cane kills. And then he just like told me the premise for your book. And my first reaction was just like laughing, like, We're teleporting six feet north, like what the fuck? why yeah like but for Why six feet? What is going on here? yeah can seem Like the most random thing. So can you, can I ask you that question? Why six feet?
00:21:00
Speaker
Yeah, just because it is random, you know, ah the idea was more nebulous to begin with, you know, I had this idea of, you know, an unearth VHS tape and I had the images of, you know, someone sitting down in a chair to watch this tape and kind of just like falling through the chair and just being like, the fuck just happened, you know? And then as the idea kind of solidified, you know, I always knew I was going to somehow tie it back to government experiments into teleportation, you know, a super Montauk, MK ultra type weird shit. It just seems so random and like goofy fun random though. so You know, it really is one of these things where, you know, there there could be a reason or there could be no reason. Basically, it's just a prototype. You know, this is just a ah piece of a puzzle and um
00:21:49
Speaker
you know, the characters themselves wonder the same thing. It's like, it's almost pointless, you know, having ah the ability to teleport six feet in one direction and only one direction, and all of the potential dangers of, you know, misuse, that it's almost like, that's stupid. But at the same time, you can't stop thinking about the implications of this, you know, and hopefully, you know, if you teleport, you'll find ah the implications to be truly, truly intense. Yeah. i I was right there on so many of the characters' journeys where they would be doing things like talking about, ah maybe we can use this to break into a bank. I'm like, it's six feet, my guys. I guess not gonna go well for you. yeah But yeah, if it all came from this military experiment, it's like, wouldn't they want it to go farther? But then it makes sense that it's a prototype. And like, I don't know, it just, everything works really well, but it just seems so goofy at surface level. And I love that. Exactly, exactly. It's deceptively simple.
00:22:50
Speaker
Yeah, um let's spin this into the fly now.
Teleportation Horror in The Fly
00:22:53
Speaker
So um we've we've mentioned that it revolves around a super similar premise, teleporting. As I was watching, it looks like about six feet but across a room. Full disclosure, I'm gonna lose so much horror cred here. This was the first k Cronenberg movie I ever watched, watching the fly podcast. Test, test, test. I know, right. Uh, nobody listens to me anymore. I'm done. Put a fork in. But I think the connection is very obvious. But if you would talk for a second about when we were talking about weird science horror and we're talking about teleport hasm and comps for it, why did you pick the fly? Why is the fly an important movie to you? What bearing did it have on this story? However, you want to take this.
00:23:41
Speaker
So yeah, when I was talking about ah teleportation as a niche, niche sub-sect of, you know, science horror, it really is ah very small. And I think, you know, you have the the Philadelphia experiment that I mentioned before. And when I say the Philadelphia experiment, I am not talking about the film released in the 1980s. I'm talking about the legend of that that film. riffs on you know so I was gonna you know pay tribute to the Philadelphia experiment but it's such a small niche a subset of horror that I wanted to pay tribute to you know every every uh teleportation horror that already exists you know kind of like touch on all these other things
00:24:23
Speaker
And in cinema, I think The Fly is, you know, the most significant teleportation horror movie. And you can talk about either the the Cronenberg ah remake in 1986 or the original, because the premise is is very similar and it has to do with teleportation and unintentional fusion with a separate entity, in this case, a human being and a fly. So I knew that I wanted to do something that was going to be a tribute to the fly. And, um you know, there's this concept put forward in the fly near the very end of, um you know, the the Seth Brundle character intentionally fusing with his girlfriend and their unborn baby into a super creature, you know, and of course, it never happens because, you know, by that point,
00:25:10
Speaker
And the implication is that Jeff Goldblum has lost his mind, Seth Rendell, the character. um So obviously that doesn't happen. So it was just a chance to kind of put my um my horror journalist hat back on and write kind of like a retrospective editorial. So you've got this idea of intentional fusion. Now what a lot of people don't know, and which one of the characters who's also a horror blogger, um Mallory, which she reveals in this chapter in Teleportasm, is that there is a deleted scene.
00:25:45
Speaker
in Cronenberg's The Fly. And it's not, you know, ah bits of a few takes and something that you see from like a work print that, you know, has all sorts of glitches and static in it. It is a fully edited and scored scene that in and of itself is just awesome. And it shows Seth go bla excuse me seth brandda The science character experimenting with intentional teleportation towards the end of the second act. So you see that this is actually in his mind well before he kind of goes nuts. So it was it was a way for me to get back into horror journalist mode and kind of
00:26:27
Speaker
do this retrospective where I'm talking about you know the fly as it you know exists, as this wonder of body horror and teleportation horror to kind of let people know that this crazy deleted scene exists, you know give them ah something they can go on an Easter egg hunt for and actually see for themselves. And then to kind of, you know as with every chapter where I'm trying to do something original, then I was like, okay, now let's take it a step further. You had this idea suggested in the fly of intentional fusion, let's see what that might actually look at. So it was it was a ah really fun chapter to write. And the ah the payoff that you get to without spoiling it is very, very well earned. Thank you. You did the body horror so very well in that moment. In so many moments, but especially in that one.
00:27:20
Speaker
You mentioned Easter eggs, little Easter eggs for people to go hunt out. And I know I saw a post from you on Twitter the other day about some other Easter eggs that you built into Teleportasm. So not to stray too far from the fly here, but um can you talk about maybe hint at or wink at a couple other things that readers can look for in Teleportasm? Well, at first, when you get the cover, you can look at the amazing art by Mark Volcik. And you can look at these VHS tapes that are stacked on top of these banks of televisions. And ah those are actually um the other killer VHS books in VHS form. So there's a shout out to the series. You also might notice, you know, it looks like one of these ah TV monitors has a little spec on it. No, that's a fly.
00:28:09
Speaker
getting into the effects of technology of everything. You know, Teleportasm, although it actually wasn't even the original title, it actually does kind of hint at an Easter egg with Phantasm, ah which was written and directed by Don Coscarelli. who wrote the screenplay and directed the next film we're going to talk about. So you know I was happy to work that in. ah One of the other big um things that I worked in that people might not be familiar with is ah The Star Is My Destination. It's a book by, I think his name is Albert Best. You're going to have to double check for me and you might have to you know correct me in the um in in the notes of this or something. Have you read my start The Star Is My Destination? Nope, not yet.
00:28:57
Speaker
It poses a ah distant future where humans organically evolved to being able to teleport and has its own set of rules and everything and it's really interesting and the stars my destination was actually supposedly I haven't asked him so I can't confirm this supposedly Stephen King's influence for writing the jaunt. And you know in the incredibly small pool of teleportation horror that I keep mentioning, the jaunt is another biggie on the literary end. So you know by referencing the stars my destination so heavily, I'm also referencing the jaunt you know in that chapter where the book is is most heavily referenced. That's the only chapter where I use the word jaunt as a verb for teleporting. And that, you know of course,
00:29:48
Speaker
touches on. Now you can see I've basically touched on every, you know, all the big players in teleportation were. And again, you know, I mentioned with the the title Teleportasm relating to Phantasm, how it wasn't the original title. I didn't ah see it, you know, clear as day in the front of my mind. But Phantasm also has a teleportation element to it. So when that occurred to me, I realized I had to put an actual Easter egg homage into the text of it. So that's in there as well. And, and along those lines, like even straying from the teleportation nods and Easter eggs and everything um snaps was here. I won't, I won't get much deeper than that for fear of spoiling things, but snaps was here. Did did we get a, the stand reference in there too? Absolutely. the Las Vegas reference.
00:30:41
Speaker
ah plenty of it, you know, and and you know all the other references to apocalyptic scenarios, you know, ah you know nightmares, you know, and other works of ah urban legend, you know, Area 51 and underground military bunkers and things like that. Yeah, just as a side note, that chapter was probably my favorite portion of the book, just the absolute heartache of everything going on there. And I won't dive any deeper there. We can actually, because I've been talking about it on other podcasts. So you know, the information is out there. Your listeners should feel free to know that ah we're talking about chapter nine. It's a chapter called Welcome to Dead World, and it's very apocalyptic.
00:31:28
Speaker
and it's it's the very beginning of Act III if you look at Teleportasm as a you know novella with a traditional three acts, but there is a major tonal shift at that point, which you you know said you know is depressing. Teleportasm was never a happy book. you know um It's bleak. No one gets off easy when you're talking about body horror, but it was ah funny. right up until this point and it's not to say that the book is never funny again but i think the budget the book is much more serious from chapter nine until the end yeah
00:32:07
Speaker
Yeah, all the all the stoner jokes, like kind of we face the implications of all of them from there on out and just, oh my gosh, the tunnel. Okay, anyhow, apocalyptic tunnels aside, um I do want to round out ah the fly a little bit more before we stray too far from it, because we've we've been talking for a second. So this is kind of a selfish question here. I already said I haven't watched much k Cronenberg and the fly was my introduction to him. So as a like deeply knowledgeable horror expert with Cronenberg, what makes Cronenberg
00:32:45
Speaker
so important in the horror scene above other body horror like masters, right? um Because there's there's clearly something deeper going on here than just, I wanna wreck a body in a really cool way, even though he does that. What does Cronenberg mean to you beyond just goopy goop? Absolutely. You know, first of all, like I explained with Cronenberg being at one end of the body horror spectrum, the scientific end, I think ah most of Cronenberg's work can be put under an umbrella of transhumanism, which is this idea very straightforward of becoming something more than human.
00:33:26
Speaker
And, you know, ah we talked about that in terms of technology in the form of implants, in the firm form of, you know, implants like you see in video drone or in existence or teleportation, as you see in the fly. um And you also have organic ah explorations of transhumanism with, you know, evolutions. in human biology and ah metabolisms. is One of his more recent films, Crimes of the Future, for example, ah talks about a new turn in human evolution where people are able to consume plastic. And it has to do with the fact that you know we've created an environment where um because of our technology, we now have micro plastics and everything and all of our food and our drinking water. And it can all be tied back to
00:34:14
Speaker
technology and ah human advancement and its implications and its effects on the human body. so trans Transhumanism is a really wonderful idea to just you know dip your toes in because you're talking about everything from you know cyborg implants you know and and things like that all the way to gene manipulation and you know things that are done in labs and it's just such a ah fertile Wellspring and that's what I think David Cronenberg has tapped into and I think that's what makes his work ah culturally relevant because it's not there just to shock you. and There's nothing there simply to make you uncomfortable while it absolutely intends to make you uncomfortable. This is a serious exploration of a potential near future.
00:35:03
Speaker
And that's a fucking brilliant answer. Good job. Thank you. Okay. And what was that? Uh, crimes of future crimes of the future. Okay. Okay. Uh, I'm adding it to the list and um am I wrong? Was he also infinity pool? Uh, I think that was the son Brandon. Okay, so there's two k Cronenberg's there are that's what's true. Brandon Cronenberg did a film called I I might be wrong, but I think it was I'm not going to even say what I think it's for the first film was but it was very clever.
00:35:38
Speaker
I don't remember the title. It's very clever and it dealt with a premise of a future where, you know, two things are really kind of weird and significant. One is that people want to get the same diseases that their celebrity idols have. So, you know, like if Kim Kardashian has a herby sword, You want a herpes or but you don't just want any herpes or you want her herpes or so they're actually doctors that deal in the intentional transmission. So you can say I have Kim Kardashians herpes or likewise. There's also a new form of ah nourishment.
00:36:11
Speaker
laboratory grown meat, which is, you know, potentially a real thing, which people are experimented with, where you can actually consume your favorite celebrity. So you can go into a meat shop and say, you know, I'd like half a pound of Kim Kardashian, and you know, ah you know, half a pound of ground Alyssa Milano, you know, it's just nuts. So Brandon's very clever, and his more recent films are Infinity Pool and Possessor. which is another really great film. Techno horror all the way talking about advancements in you know technology that would allow an infiltration of someone's consciousness. So yeah, Brandon is a chip off the old body horror block. He's good work of his father and he's a a young man like us and he's you know got ah kind of like ah a new insight on the new generation.
00:37:03
Speaker
Cheers. Okay. i It is good to have my head wrapped around that then. Talking about um kind of transcending the human experience though.
Influences of John Dies at the End
00:37:13
Speaker
I think that's a good, if not exactly in the same vein, but a good transition to our last movie we wanted to talk about. John dies at the end. um So again, kind of like we did with The Fly, can you introduce this movie um and book? But we we mostly focused on the movie here. But can you introduce this movie and tell listeners a little bit about the influence it had on teleportism?
00:37:40
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. You know, John Dies at the End is really a ah unique film. It absolutely is based on a book, and I'm going to admit that I have not read the book. and The author goes by the pseudonym David Wong, who is also a character in John Dies at the End playing the the main protagonist of his own. story and ah John dies at the end has a lot of elements of slipping through reality and it it touches on issues of going to other dimensions.
00:38:12
Speaker
And what I really like about John Dies, one of the things I really like about John Dies at the end, which ties into the larger conversation we're having, is this all revolves around a drug. What gives you the ability to split between dimensions? A drug. What happens when you take this drug? Well, it's unlike any drug you've ever had before, and it really puts you in tune with the universe in a way that is unlike anything else. to the detriment of your sanity. You're never the same again after you take this drug. And it's even suggested that this drug has a consciousness that it chooses who it wants to affect.
00:38:52
Speaker
So I loved these ideas, you know, and, you know, one of the first drafts of telecortezam actually leaned more heavily into the pseudoscience of it all, where there was more of a drug component, you know, sort of like ah describing drugs like DMT and ah postulating that these were sort of, um, um, substances that would allow someone to explore other realms, right? But when you're exploring another realm on DMT, in in my imagining, it was kind of like being in a submarine where you're you're in another realm, but you're still in a bubble of your own reality, you know, because otherwise you couldn't resist, but you couldn't exist
00:39:35
Speaker
physically. So what I imagined was ah finding a way out of the submarine. So using or or duplicating the effects of DMT, but then finding a way to to to bring not only the spiritual self and the mental self, psychological self, but also the physical self. Really great things in John dies at the end. And it's also, you know, there's the Don Coscarelli connection, which I mentioned earlier. Don Coscarelli, the writer-director of Phantasm, wrote the screenplay ah for John dies at the end and he directs it. So um it's just great seeing these really imaginative themes explored. Don Coscarelli has his own ah style, you know, that's very nightmarish, a lot of dream logic, a lot of surrealism, you know, fever dream elements, so
00:40:26
Speaker
It's just it's a great film also like Teleportas and it's very dense. There's a lot going on almost to the film's detriment I had to see it kind of two or three three times to really pick up on Everything that's going on because you know if you give it a synopsis you can actually be kind of like oh yeah, that's what the film is about the film is about and a couple of slacker Ghostbusters who find themselves involved with a potential interdimensional invasion. And it's such a dense kaleidoscopic film that you can be like, oh, yeah, that is kind of what it's about, you know, and it might take you a minute to realize that that's what it's about, because it seems like you're just on a crazy trip along with the protagonist.
00:41:16
Speaker
Yeah, the the comp that popped into my mind while I was watching it was it was like the the dude wears my car version of supernatural. Hell yeah. and But it's I think it and Teleportasm are so fun in how they layer everything that's going on. like theres There's so many little side stories popping up and there's so many different things that like have a lot of significance that you don't realize in the moment on the first watch through. That once you get to the end of the movie and you realize how the other dimensions are coming into play or you're understanding how exactly this VHS works,
00:41:52
Speaker
not how exactly the VHS works, because we never really figured that out. But you get more ideas of the rules. Oh, are you talking about mine with the VHS or John Deiss? Okay. ah second h interrupt I thought you were talking about the movie and I was like, no, it's the soy sauce. But yeah, yes, teleport thousand VHS. Well, I'm kind of I'm kind of trying to work them both together because the VHS and the soy sauce What the fuck is this sentence? The VHS and the soy sauce ah like are like so similar as mechanisms to launch these these like kids that are way out of their depth into these crazy adventures.
00:42:29
Speaker
John and Dave, the two main characters are kind of these, ah yeah they they don't smoke weed, but they, you know, slackers, you know, kind of, ah you know, ah hipsters kind of like just trying to figure out, you know, just kind of like a ah but successfully failing through life, you know, so there was kind of that same, there's that same element where like, this isn't this isn't, you know, a hard science, you know, this is low tech science because we're talking about, you know, if, you know, you're not expected to understand anything that the characters don't understand. Right. Yeah. It's, it's not an unreliable narrator. It's a, it's a, the, the narrator just has so much information and their information just like, isn't all of it. So like, and I can get all of them.
00:43:17
Speaker
John Dyson at the end has some really good twists all along the way, you know, with like oh, that's ah that's a cool twist right there. And then it ends with ah a really good twist that almost overshadows the entire film because you end up just really kind of like thinking about that final twist, um you know, which which doesn't necessarily lay into the narrative as much, but it certainly is the heaviest twist of the film. Yeah, um as far as kind of the twists and the bits, because like with John dies at the end, I feel like the tone is very seriously silly, if that makes any sort of sense.
00:44:00
Speaker
It does. um but it But it all revolves around these weird bits of like jokes getting pulled from other dimensions or crossing dimensions or things like that. Do you have a favorite joke from John dies at the end that maybe like highlights for listeners like this is what this movie is about? Well, I really love the character of Clancy Brown, who plays this kind of like ah super sexy rock star spiritualist. You know, you just see him going into these kind of ah um you know arenas and you hear the crowd going wild inside, but you never see his show. So you don't even know what he does. And he's surrounded by this entourage of beautiful young women. Clancy Brown is just a really fun actor. And just the fact that he's in the film um that is is wonderful. And he pops up at some great times. But I also think a great thing to mention about the film,
00:44:54
Speaker
you know ah the writer, screenwriter, director, gone Don Cascarelli. He's known primarily for the Phantasm franchise, who's the iconic lead of the Phantasm franchise, Angus Graham as the tall man. Angus Graham has the cameo in John dies at the end, and it starts out as like oh cool we're seeing Angus and something completely different but then it's a small part but it absolutely flips it on you in the end because it does kind of turn into something nightmarish and it's like good old Angus may he rest in peace you know just another ah wonderful little turn for the tall man yeah um
00:45:34
Speaker
And then, oh, what's his name? The ah physical actor that pi plays the pale man in Pan's Labyrinth. Doug Jones, yeah, he's great. Doug Jones! He just pops out from another dimension and you're right. It is similar to Teleportasm and it feels like that's a chapter, the chapter where, you know, this character soups in from another dimension and he's almost like ah one of these futuristic characters from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure that he practically worships. you know, ah Dave and John for what they're about to accomplish, you know, and and then he just like pops out and then pops in later and you realize that crazy gibberish he was saying in the car when this crazy slug monster was trying to burrow into Dave's chest. Oh, that all comes back together. Those were threads. Yeah, the timelines just weren't synced up yet. Exactly. um Maybe the most important question of the episode. um Would the soy sauce have chosen you?
00:46:29
Speaker
I definitely think the soy sauce would have chosen me. If I'm being honest, which I don't mind being, you know. if i If I go to bed tonight and wake up in the morning freaking out, maybe I'll ask you to delete this. But I've experimented with um hallucinogens ah responsibly. um I have an affinity for cannabis, as I think anyone who reads the novel will be aware, just like anyone who could see me if this was a virtual or a video podcast. I think people would look at me and think that's that's a stereotypical cannabis smoker. And I am.
00:47:04
Speaker
um But, you know, I'm very fascinated by drugs and narco horror. Now, soy sauce is scary because it's an injectable it's an intravenous and that's something I've never done. At the same time I understand the seductiveness of ah intravenous drugs you know I was, I wasn't am a big fan of William Burroughs. be poet and you know sort of psychedelic ah novelist and if I was going to claim that there is a definite sub-genre of narco horror at least in the literary ah ah realm I might say that he is the father of or the godfather of narco horror in literature and you know it's it's also
00:47:48
Speaker
connected in that David Cronenberg directed a movie adaptation of The Naked Lunch, which is not similar in many ways to the novel. The novel is is almost indecipherable, and Cronenberg does an amazing job of ah directing a tale that takes many of the elements of Naked Lunch, actually incorporates some of the mythology about William Burroughs himself, and creates another example of narco horror. Not so much of the transhumanism that I've talked about in other Cronenberg films, because this is more of a period piece taking place back in the you know ah late 50s, early 60s. So it's it's a bit of anomaly in Cronenberg's work, but it it fits nicely into this conversation we've been having about science horror and narco horror and weird science. Gotcha.
00:48:42
Speaker
We're getting a bunch of, I'm getting so many new movie recs, just talking to you right now. This is good. um Okay, so bringing it back to Teleportasm, because we're getting near time here. um So we've got kind of, in my mind, the fly, we've got the body horror aspect of the fly, and also we've got like the romance of the tragedy of the fly built into Teleportasm. And then with John Dies at the end, we've got the the goofy stoner comedy, The the kind of cerebral jokes all of this melded together if you just threw out the movies the fly and John dies at the end Six months ago and told me that there was a book that manages to slam-bang the both of them together I would have thought you were insane but Teleport has him manages to be the spiritual crossroads
Killer VHS Series and Teleportasm
00:49:33
Speaker
between these two and it's so cool
00:49:35
Speaker
For our broader topic at hand, though, with weird science, is there anything that we forgot to talk about here? Yeah, you know, I think that this has been an amazing conversation, and I'm not saying this just to get out or anything. I think this is perhaps the most in-depth conversation I've had about the the scientific side of teleportasm and body horror. I think ah people might actually find this ah culturally relevant, you know, the the depths that we've gone into. And I appreciate your direction in this conversation, you know curating this conversation because it gave me the the opportunity to organize a lot of my thoughts. um I'm a huge fan of Cronenberg. I'm a huge fan of Clive Barker. you know And I'm a huge fan of the Killer VHS series. And I think that's what I'd like to conclude on if I may. Alan Lestufka, the founder of Shortwave, is the architect of the Killer VHS.
00:50:32
Speaker
franchise and um I am so proud and humble that he selected me to be a part of it. Now I've written other fiction and if you've read my other books you might pick up Teleportasm and be like oh this is a real departure and it is in a sense because In Teleportasm, as being the third entry in the Killer VHS franchise, I wanted to maintain a ah tone that had been established ah through my predecessors. you know um These Killer VHS books all have a vibe. you know They could potentially all exist in the same universe. And Teleportasm had to you know be in there. It had to be a cousin of these ah past and future entries.
00:51:18
Speaker
That said, I do think Teleportasm is the most R-rated book in the Killer VHS series, at least to date. you know i I know it's coming down the the pike, but I haven't read anything yet. Teleportasm is a hard R, and I actually think it's one of the few straight-up body horrors that shortwave publishing has ever published. So it's a lot of fun. If there were two things I really set out to do with Teleportasm, it was to be really entertaining and really gross. And I hope I hit those two markers and everything else is just, you know, come and play in this crazy sandbox, let your mind wander in this universe I've created. And I'm just stoked that the initial reviews have been positive and I'm excited about the potential future
00:52:10
Speaker
of this story. Yeah, I've heard Alan describe this a couple of times as goosebumps for adults. It's got that similar tone across everything but it is pure, like it is R rated. I would be interested to have you and Brian, like on you and Brian McCauley on a panel together I don't even care about spoiling it because you said this is a spoiler show. He has this one scene in Candy Cane Kills where someone's getting killed by snow just being packed into his mouth and he's throwing up at the same time. The description is that this guy doesn't know whether he's choking or drowning and it is so hardcore.
00:52:52
Speaker
You know, really brief, but Brian can absolutely hit those really intense R rated moments. You know, that's something that wouldn't even convey in a film necessarily. But, you know, describing, you know, imagining yourself in a situation where you don't know if you're choking or drowning. is nightmarish so well done Brian yeah get us on the same show yeah and I think Alex Ebenstein's melon heads didn't hold back either but I think I think you and Brian are going heavyweight for like gnarliest kill i'm I'm thinking of your tree and I'm thinking of his uh let let's call it the toothpaste tube moment
00:53:30
Speaker
but she Really, really gruesome and can't wait to see what he's going to release in the sequel part five after cicadas, which comes out in September. Yeah. I'm looking forward to part two of Candy Cane Kills called Candy Cane Kills Again, where hopefully Brian's going to up the ante by picking up exactly where that story left off. Yeah. Um, well, Josh, this has been amazing. I have loved talking to you. billing is mutual Thank you so much for the invitation for giving me a chance to ah go off like this. You know, when, when you write a novel, you spend so much time alone or only talking about it with your publisher, then it gets released and you you kind of want to be mom with a lot of the spoilers. Finally, you can just kind of like let it all out.
00:54:19
Speaker
speak freely about it, and it's been wonderful ah being able to do it with you on on this show. Yeah, man. Loved it so much. One last little plug for yourself before we sign off. If listeners want to interact with you more, get to know you better. Where can they find you on social media or wherever, you know?
Connect with Josh Millikan
00:54:38
Speaker
Yeah, check me out on TikTok at Josh underscore Milliken or on Instagram at Joshua underscore Milliken. I do have a YouTube channel, which I just kind of futz around with that there's a link to on my Twitter page. ah But yeah, I'm trying to be more active on social media and I have a few upcoming readings and events. So, you know, if you're in Southern California or just want to see where I am and what I do and what I'm up to, please give me a follow. And if if you reach out and ask me a question, I'll try to I'll try to hit you back.
00:55:16
Speaker
Amazing. Well, thank you again for coming on here. Listeners, thank you so much for tuning in. This brings us to a close for a while. I'm going to be pausing the show for a bit while I work my way through submissions for the punk goes horror anthology coming soon from true born press. Wish me luck if you've got any need to spare. But in the meantime, don't forget to like, subscribe, or face Six Feet North through your streaming service of choice, and we will see you next time. ah Stay spooky.
00:55:56
Speaker
barers tied bells to everybody in the war so if they had a t they knew somebody down there wasn't quite ready to