Flightless Bird: Haunted Houses

I'm David Farrier, a New Zealander accidentally marooned in America, and I want to figure out what makes this country tick now. This time last year, exactly this time last year. I investigated Halloween for Flightless Bird. I found out it had its origins in Celtic harvest rituals before Christians made Halloween their holiday, before eventually becoming scared of it themselves.

The 7th century they had established this holiday, called All Saints Day in the 9th century Pope Gregory. He said, Why don't we put that around the time of this other holiday? They're celebrating the blessed Dead. We'll have All Saints Day, November 1st, and then the next day, we'll have All Souls Day. For the souls in Purgatory who didn't die on this day of Grace, who we're praying for and who we want to eventually go to Heaven.

In that episode, I also dispelled some Halloween urban legends.

There was all this talk about the candies being poisoned and your mother would look through. And then they'd make the apples and make sure there was no razor blades in the apples.

Finally, I got a witch to visit my very old apartment to try and find out more about the ghost that was waking me up at 3am every morning. There is certainly energy here, there's certainly spirits here, okay?

Yeah, I get this upper tummy like just below the sternum, I get this kind of like rumbly feeling.

It's now, a year later, the ghost still haunts my room at 3am. And here we are at Halloween again. This year. I decided it was time to get out of my haunted apartment and go and get scared at another house, at a haunted house. A haunted house with Monica Mouse. So make sure to be incredibly brave and don't even think about screaming.

I'm a flightless bird. Touchdown in America.

Haunted House with Monica Mouse was good writing, wasn't it?

Beautiful Wordplay.

That's why I get the big bucks. I wrote that and I had a little grin on my face. I was like, Oh, I can't wait.

Oh, it was great, that made me smile.

It's Halloween.

It's Halloween, happy Halloween.

Happy Halloween to you.

I love the fall, I love this time of year, this is exciting.

It's really good and something I've noticed from when we did the last episode for Halloween. So I remember last year being a bit like, Oh man, Americans get really overboard. This is cool, but it's too much. This year, I'm feeling excited to see the decorations going up.

Oh, you can go all out.

I mean, each one is about $400, and their husband is assembling these creatures.

Are they rich?

They can afford the monsters.

Good for them.

And they're really, really cool monsters. And so going there, it's like you're in a little haunted house. But my point is, I get it. It's exciting. I think it's the best of all the silly holidays that happen during the year.

Well, I like that. And that only took you. It was so fast, you became American so fast.

Yeah, and you know what, I bought my first Halloween costume.

Oh, you sent me a pic.

It's scary, right?

It's too scary. Tell people what it is.

It's Pinhead from my favorite cosmic horror howlraiser, and it's all in the name. It's just a man with pins in his head. Pinhead, great name.

But so scary, very unsettling.

And I put it on and I looked at myself in the mirror and I was like, I can't wait to scare some children.

Oh god.

That was my first thought. It's going to be fun.

Are you coming to the Hayride?

Oh, tell me about the Hayride thing. Yeah, I've never been.

You should come, it's tonight.

Yeah, no, I'll go explain what happens. It's in the neighborhood, Dax is on a tractor, there's hay.

Yep.

And also just explain to me the whole Hayride thing, because you can go to hayrides all over America, right? You get on a tractor, they drag you around in hay, what is it?

Yeah, and they often make it scary. Okay, well, I guess not always, but we have one in L.A.

But there'll be monsters and stuff, right?

Yeah, just like fun Halloween things you drive through, like a Halloween scene.

And so what is Dax driving?

He drives a Tesla because Teslas can pull a ton of weight.

Okay, and we're all in a trailer.

Yeah, an open trailer.

All sitting in the trailer.

All sitting full of hay.

Full of hay.

In our costumes, it's a little itchy, but it's worth it. And then he from the front blares Halloween music, he makes a cute little playlist and just drives through the neighborhood, blasting the Halloween music. Okay, I like this.

Yeah, great, brings the neighborhood together. Yeah, and I think that's what I didn't understand when I first moved here is that it is a community event, it's how neighbors meet each other.

Well, it is scary if your neighbors poison you.

Have you heard about this Australian, this crime that's happened? no, what happened? alleged crime. So look, I'm probably going to get the facts a little bit wrong because it happened a few months ago now.

And she's saying, it was an accident, yeah.

She's still in the hospital, though.

Oh what, that's a big fact to leave out.

No, no, she didn't eat the mushrooms, though she was all clear.

She'd used some dried mushrooms and they were poisonous.

I think they're still investigating, really. They found like she'd disposed of a blender in the rubbish tip that she'd like used to blend the mushrooms, and so why was that at the tip? That's suspicious.

Yeah, three people died and one person is in critical condition. Wow.

Yeah, it's actually horrific, it's not funny at all. What sort of incredible is this really? You should seek it out. There's an interview with her.

Okay, this is so intense because if she did it, so much fear and also what, what's going on with her? And wow.

So intense.

Whoa. But also if she didn't do it on purpose, this is horrific. You've killed people you love on accident. People think you did it on purpose. People are at your door.

All people will remember, was the headline of When it happened, they won't remember the exoneration or anything, They'll always be suspicious.

There's one more bit of information. So her children weren't there, she gave them leftover beef Wellington the next day, but scraped off the mushrooms.

But the people who were poisoned would probably have been in the hospital by the time she served it to the kids.

I reckon that would hit quick.

Yeah, I don't know why she would not throw it out immediately.

And look again, it's dangerous to be throwing sort of half-remembered facts about a news story that you read. But I also believe she possibly tried to poison someone else in the past. That was the last line of one of the news articles. Wow, so yeah, it's really juicy, and it has Australia and New Zealand kind of enthralled.

It's a ding, ding, ding.

Wow, I mean, have you ever served dinner to someone but not eaten the thing that you're serving? No, of course not.

Of course not, but also, and I do these girls dinners at least once a month and I have everyone over. They're so fun. But I always, every single time they leave while I'm cleaning up, I think, please, just nobody gets sick tonight.

Or nobody gets food poisoning from this.

I have a fear every time.

Yeah.

What a disaster. How embarrassing would that be?

Yeah, imagine wiping everyone out. I had a friend that served octopus and it came with, I don't know how you meant to, because it comes with ink. And basically, she was meant to remove the ink, maybe, or cook it in a different way. And she absolutely wiped out the entire dinner party with this inky octopus.

You were there.

No, no, it was this infamous thing, but it's exactly as you're saying.

Even the chicken I get panicky about, and yeah, the risk is much lower.

I've been thinking because there was that documentary that won the Oscar about the octopus, My Octopus teacher, about this man who sort of befriended an octopus and hung out with it underwater. But it is one of those things where that did make me apprehensive about eating octopus.

I mean, they are really smart.

They're so, so smart.

And apparently have really sentient feelings.

Yeah, and then it put me on the path of like, but I'm eating McDonald's all the time and then go anyway. Halloween, we went to a haunted night together.

We sure did.

And I had my microphone, I documented the night. In hindsight. Did you have a good time or a bad time?

I had a very good time.

It was fun, right?

I'm really glad we went, I'm glad you dragged me there because I was on the fence.

You were.

Because I'm a bonafide fraidy cat, I'm scared of stuff, I'm scared of anything, all things, let alone things that are actively trying to be scary.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, where do you sit on Ghosts?

I never believed in ghosts. I still don't. I think you have affected me a little bit, your ghost, Derek.

Yeah.

We named him Derek.

Still waking me up? Yeah, it's a real thing.

He makes me a little anxious that he's real. I'm still 96, sure he's not real.

Swear to God, I'm still waking up at 3 a.

Ding ding ding octopus. They're smart and they do things without our knowledge.

You'll say, my brain has learned this behavior almost.

You can learn when to wake up in the morning, too.

No, your brain doesn't have a clock in there. Of course it does. No, it's not an alarm system.

It's literally called your, I think it's called your internal clock.

Yeah, but if you have to be up at a certain time in the morning and you're anxious about sleeping in, you can wake up at that time.

Oh, for sure, I think your brain and body are now programmed to do it in that environment.

To do this thing, so I'm not waking up at 3 a.m every morning, going, just Hi, Derek, move on for nothing.

Yeah.

Did you name him Derek? or he told you his name was Derek?

No, he hasn't talked to me, he's just I feel him.

David's never seen him or talked to him. I felt him, you've only felt him.

He hovers over my body every night, he comes in the window, he floats in, He hovers over me. I wake up.

To answer your question, David made up his name.

But I like it.

I think it suits him.

Do we have any updates on the pool?

Oh, the pool. Thankfully, the times of the day that I go that are quite obscure. I haven't noticed a major change. Okay, yeah, which means either I'm swimming at the right time or our listeners aren't swimmers.

Yeah, I can tell that's a good or bad thing for us.

It's hard to tell. Yeah, the optics are confusing.

You guys comment if you're a swimmer in the comments. I'm curious, curious to know how many people are swimmers David style or non-swimmers Monica style?

Okay, Halloween come along with us as we experience terror. Do you want to set the scene of where we are? This is so full on. I thought we were just coming in for a Halloween night, but we're sort of at a red carpet sort of.

There's a whole carpet here with people walking on it that I don't know. My guess is they are probably universal stars.

It's just about 7 p.

Multiple. And it's going to be so scary, and I'm trying not to be scared.

You were saying in the car quite confidently that you didn't think you were going to be scared. How are you feeling now that we're sort of on the grounds, about to go in?

I'm feeling scared.

What's your main scare? For me? It's I get really scared by humans with animal heads. Wow, okay.

In real life, I'm scared of murderers and kidnappers. That's why that was in my prayer no kidnappers, no robbers.

In the world of things that you know aren't real, what gets you in the world of movies?

There's going to be a chucky thing in here and demented kids scares me.

Is it because they're little and creeping along, or is it because they're children?

Yeah, it's because they're kids, and kids are wily already, and so if they're demented.

I'm with Monica. One of my greatest fears is having a child who turns out to be wily and demented. Anyone who's read the book or watched the movie we need to talk about. Kevin knows what I mean. And then, of course, there's Chucky. I know Monica hates the demented doll, and I'm excited that one of the new haunted houses this year is nothing but Chucky.

Run.

Haunted houses first appeared during the Great Depression. Halloween pranks had gotten out of hand, and so they were kind of invented by adults to distract kids. Now it's 2023, and therefore adults as much as kids. The production value is here in Hollywood as high as they get. Before we go inside, we meet up with John Murdy, the creative director behind the Haunted Houses.

I've been a horror fan since I was four, because that's when I saw Frankenstein for the first time. And something about those films just drew me in from a really, really young age. And horror's been a huge part of my life ever since.

Halloween is a giant part of America that I'm still figuring out. When did it get into your blood?

I was born and raised in Southern California. My trick-or-treating career was very, very short. Because when I was 10 years old, I started building haunted houses in my parents garage. 77 Star Wars themed. That was my first haunted house. I didn't ask permission from George Lucas, so hopefully he'll forgive me that.

By the time he was 14, John had 200-odd people lining up outside his haunted house. His dad had to step in at some point to rein things in a little, but tonight, the reins are off. Since 2016, he's been refining the haunted houses here to make them as scary as possible. What makes a good haunted house?

In my opinion, you need three things you need characters, whether it's from a film, a TV show. A myth like monstros, The Monsters of Latin America, one of our houses this year, it's all drawn from Latin American myths and legends. But you need characters that can translate to performers, and our performers in horror nights are called scarectors or scare actors. The second thing you need is great environments, iconic environments that are recognizable from whatever the property is. And the last thing, you know, it really comes down to the fans.

Why do you think Americans love being scared this much like there's a fandom around just being scared?

Well, we study that and then we use it against you, that's what we do. All your phobias, all your fears, that's stuff we study, and then we turn it on you and make you deal with it. That's really what it is. It's very similar to riding a roller coaster.

Before we head inside, I had one final question. For John, a man who's been getting off on scaring people since he was 10 years old, he's probably a psychopath. We should lock him up and throw away the key. Monica hates tiny, scary children like Chucky. How is she going to cope with things tonight?

You're probably not going to fare well because I'm having a little spat with Chucky at the moment. He's really mad at me because I've never given him his own haunted house. We finally did it, but then he hijacked the whole thing. Oh no, he raised an army of killer good guy dolls.

An army.

That's what he said he's going to do, so I feel compelled to warn you.

This is the best news imaginable. As we walk towards the main gates of Universal, Monica genuinely looks unsure of things. She usually seems quite put together at the top of her game. But I think the cracks are showing.

There's now going to be a whole army of these tiny doll kids.

What a face you have here, Monica.

Also, when we were talking to him, I bit my lip and I think it's bleeding, so it's already horror, it's already on brand.

I'd warned her to wear sneakers on her tiny feet as we might need to do some running. As someone checks our tickets, I look around me and notice the swarms of horror fans here tonight. A lot of them are in black, head to toe, wearing hoodies and t-shirts of their favourite horror films. It's kind of overwhelming. Now. If we get lost, Monica, we're going to meet back here at the front, okay?

Okay, but if our phones die, we meet right here by this fountain.

These horror nights have become fairly iconic here in Los Angeles. I mean, they have universal studios behind them. They help cement monsters like Dracula and the Mummy in pop culture. They know special effects, they know how to make you feel scared.

Okay, okay.

Oh god, oh god.

I hate this, I hate this, I hate this.

We're not even near any of the haunted houses here tonight. But suddenly a man bursts from the crowd. He's carrying a chainsaw and zeroes in directly on Monica, and by zeroes in, I mean, he charges at her chainsaw, revving Monica's just run away from a man with a chainsaw. This is the best.

I know, but I think you're just going to leave me in the lurch.

You know, you're safe with me, it's okay.

Are you sure?

It continues like this for the next 15 minutes. I keep trying to talk to Monica about the experience, then something scares her and she screams and runs away.

It's really hard, they get super close, I can feel the heat of the chainsaw.

I think things have calmed down when a fan approaches Monica, but turns out in this setting, that was scary, too.

I thought that lady was.

I'm just a fan of yours.

She's a regular, she's an armchair-y stay away.

She had wild eyes. As we walk further in, metal music is blaring, heightening the already unhinged atmosphere. Eventually, we make it through the chainsaw attacks and things seem calmer. It's very visceral because we all know what chainsaws do, yes.

Oh, I'm sweating, I'm sweating.

We head towards some very long escalators to descend towards some of the haunted houses. The sun's setting, and it's a moment of tranquility before the real horror starts. What's that sunset?

A dream to live here. There's a picture of me, I must be 10 or 11 or something. My family came and there's a picture of me at the Hollywood Sign. It's like, I'm going to live here one day.

And I do.

As we travel down the final escalator, the sun finally sets and we descend into darkness and, more importantly, into terror.

You had bad timing, you would always try to talk when a chainsaw guy would come out.

The great thing about the actors there that we both noticed is that once they know that you're scared, they remember you because you were getting quite fucked off.

I was by the end.

Yeah, right, you're like, just stop, stop. And then you'd see another one and you'd be angry, and then they'd just prey on you even more.

Yeah, I mean, I guess spoiler. But at the end, we were walking out and we had to walk back through the chainsaw. Guys, you looked so fed up, I was so angry.

You're just tired, you're exhausted.

And then we get to the front and we were like, are there bathrooms? I was like, I'll just hold it until we get home and you're like, No, we're here. We should just go now. And then we had to go back through those guys in order to get to the bathroom.

I don't often see your mad face, and it was really fun to see like you just fed up expression. Because it's not something I see very often and I really do enjoy it.

I wanted to yell at these guys, it's a strike, you shouldn't even be here.

I don't think they're sag.

Yeah, off union. They are acting, and you do wonder the people that are attracted to those roles. Because when you're in the haunted house being an actor, you're just in the one place, just continuously scaring for hours.

I think you must get so bored of it.

Yeah, the same reaction every time.

And then that's where my real neuroses and real fear starts to creep in. Because I feel like it might make you go mad, like it might make you go actually crazy.

Actually go demented.

And then you have access to all these people, you're dressed up, you have the weapon, and if you go crazy at any moment, everyone's dead.

And also everyone just thinks it's part of the act, exactly so you could be murdering someone. In one of those rooms, more people would be filing through and they'd just be like, Oh, this room's quite bloody and scary.

This is part of it.

Very realistic, yes, and you could probably just kill all night. Exactly, there's a movie part in that.

I bet there is a movie.

There's a haunted house, it's closed down now. But it used to be set at an old psychiatric hospital out of the city. Maybe 40 minutes, and so the actual settings were terrifying because it's an old, closed down psychiatric hospital.

And then you can't tell who's an actor and who's the patient.

That's the scary thought. There's a documentary about it called Spookers. It's actually really good. It's about the actors there and what they're about and who they are. And it's actually kind of special because some of them, like, find themselves in those moments of acting.

I mean, I do love that they're called at Universal, that they're called scarectors.

They have this very specific name.

And I bet they do feel like it's a community.

I also love that there's this guy. And his job is just to design haunted houses. He started doing it when he was 12, and now he's doing it at one of the biggest theme parks. And that's a job for an adult man is building haunted houses. I do love that.

There is dream big.

Dream big.

In dark tours, you did a semi haunted house, right?

Yeah, McKamey, Manor.

Yeah, around the Midwest, they'll do you sign a waiver and they're allowed to touch you and fuck with you.

Yeah, that's fucked up.

Yeah, I mean, that McKamey Manor is this, and full disclosure. I didn't get very far. I opted out pretty quickly because the idea is no one makes it through and no one does. But that's more just because he's kind of torturing you. The thing with the haunted house that we knew no one is going to touch us.

Also, I feel like we touched on this for a second on the fact check right after me, and you went. But how can they be so sure they're not going to touch you? They get so close? There are a couple of times where I thought, you're breaking the rules, if I just jolt a little bit, you'll touch me.

You're going to be in contact. We're in a sue-hungry country. I was also thinking, isn't it the worry that you will give someone a heart attack? I don't think you sign a waiver when you buy your ticket for these things. We didn't sign anything.

That I know of. I have so much adrenaline, I can't be sure.

Would that hold up? In court? No one touched me that I knew of. But you're right, it's like a thin line. They get very, very close.

Because they're kind of hopped up on their role.

They are, they're hopped up on the adrenaline of fear.

How's therapy going for you, David?

Therapy's going good, I have been in regular therapy now for about four months.

That's great.

And it's working out for me because my brain often gets in the way of things, even when I know what I'm sort of meant to be doing. And you can talk to friends and stuff, and that's great.

Yeah, I get that.

And that was my solution.

And then you peeked back in and it was a hat, yeah.

My technique was not to attack, but just to yell and scream and run, make a loud noise. Yeah, everyone has their own real-life scare stories, everyone around us here tonight, many of them much scarier than an outline of a hat in the dark.

Underwater suffocation, I think, like a car that gets underwater and you're stuck in that car, oh my god. Also because I can't swim, you know, it's like this added element.

I think mine is buried alive. The whole claustrophobia thing gets me every time, I don't mind having my head chopped off or something like that. That's okay, quick and easy.

They have to slowly chop it off.

Like, yeah, yeah, it would take a long time. Yeah, it's not like a quick decapitation. I mean, dying in general is a big fear of mine, so I like to think that a night like this is kind of some sort of catharsis around death.

I think so. I think it has to do with controlled fears. Most of our fears are uncontrollable. We don't know, but this is like, you know?

We see signs to two haunted houses in front of us. We've made it. The last of us is in front of us and the exorcist, because there's a new exorcist film, and that's very scary.

Possessions. I'm not scared at all, I should never say that because I'm obviously going to be so scared. It's scary if they make it scary where they get in your face and they're all bloody like that.

I've discovered that when Monica gets scared, she sounds a bit bossy. It's time to navigate the huge lines that have built up to the exorcist house. There's so many people here in line. Have you ever seen a line that thick?

That's insane.

It's not just a line, it's a thick line of like ten people wide. There's a buzz in the line, people are excited, fizzing.

Honestly, the thrill of it.

It's just awesome.

I feel like it's soul awakening, I guess.

Honestly, I'm an actor, so I studied film, so just looking into monsters and stuff like that, just growing up with it, I don't know. It just feels like home. Sometimes you can watch Christmas movies or Thanksgiving movies, anything like that.

But when it comes to Halloween movies, it's just so amazing.

Especially every year, there's coming with original ideas, new ideas, remakes, reboots.

Requels? Everything you've got right there, it just makes it even better. I think it's something about it being dark and the anticipation. I was worried about the strobes inside, about Monica's seizures, but she reckoned she'll be okay. I imagine if she did start seizing, people would just think it was part of the show.

No, I hate Leprechauns.

From each house, we emerge hot and sweaty, but relieved, relieved to be free. I'm so sweaty like my face is dripping.

Oh my God, we did not dress appropriately.

I'd noticed another thing about Monica, she was getting annoyed at me for not protecting her, but what was I meant to do? Attack the monsters, attack the actors.

They need to stay back because if they on accident touch me, I'm suing, I'm suing.

This is your fault.

You'll have to live with that.

What will you do if I'm dead tomorrow because of this? As we're talking about dying? A car with flashing lights passes by, there's another car following slowly. I wonder if someone's fainted or something. I mean, we're getting a little delirious.

I know I'm exhausted and I'm hungry.

As we stumble around trying to find some bad food and some water, one of the staff members starts talking to us, curious about the microphone. He's a young guy, gripping a brush and shovel. He's here to keep things clean. How's your night going? It's good, it's good.

It happens a lot because people can't control themselves when they're scared.

Yeah, it does, it does happen a lot. Yeah, it's like it just happens regularly. I'm surprised, but working here, yeah, it happens often, especially this time, yeah.

You too.

And with that fight in mind, fights that happen often, apparently, we head into Monica's version of Hell, the chucky, haunted house, the ultimate, wily, demented child. Maybe I'll have to fight him off.

I'm actually I'm pretty nervous about whatever nightmares I'm going to have tonight. After all of this, what are my dreams going to be? ugh.

Chucky was birthed in America in 1988 thanks to a horror film called Child's Play. In the movie, a widow buys a doll for her son. little does she know the doll is possessed by a dead serial killer. Bad luck for the kid and nearly everyone else in the film besides Chucky. And so, with that in mind, we walk into Monica's worst nightmare.

Just because their eyes are weird.

They're like glass, marbly eyes.

In the line, she's not alone in her fears. I don't know.

I don't like the idea of a small little person chasing me.

Suddenly, Monica has a revelation about horror and about haunted houses, and about why fear can be sort of special.

Where everyone's sharing the exact same emotion, it feels good, it feels very unifying.

I think that's part of it, because if you're afraid on your own, it's horrific, but being afraid with a group.

Yeah, there's something that's like, Oh, we're all in this together. Yeah, it's kind of beautiful, Chucky, first time and last time I'll ever say that.

And with that?

I have to take a deep breath.

We do the final haunted house.

Monica just punched me.

This haunted house has turned Monica full feral. You're halfway through. How are you feeling halfway?

Oh, no, I thought we were almost done.

She's in survival mode, and, you know what, she survives, we emerge alive. Monica, you did really, really, really well.

Thanks.

I feel depleted.

I feel like you faced one of your greatest fears and you came out the other side, a bigger person.

Thank you, I'll take it, I'll take it. Not any help by you.

I tapped your shoulder one time to make sure you're OK and you lashed out at me.

You tapped my shoulder to scare me.

Chicken tap and you hit me with violence, you used violence.

Yeah, I did, and I will, I'll continue to.

Happy Halloween, happy Halloween.

Yeah, you instigated that at the most extreme time of fear, you poked me literally and figuratively, and then you tried to claim it was a protective nudge.

It was a protective nudge.

There's no such thing. What is that? What's a protective nudge? That's not a thing.

Well, you're afraid of someone accidentally grabbing you if he grabs you.

Yes, thank you, Rob.

Yeah, it was an amazing reaction and I got to see a new side of you.

I was proud of you. The truth is, I will stick up for myself.

Yeah, absolutely.

If someone attacks, I'll punch.

I'm still blown away by the revelation we had in there from someone who wrote at Universal who says fights are not uncommon, they happen. And it's exactly what you were talking about, the idea of people getting too scared and maybe lashing out or something happening that goes down.

When we have psychologists on who say that you're in your reptile brain, your amygdala, that is what's happening when your fear level is so high.

And you just lash out.

Your frontal lobe is offline, so you can't even get in trouble or be responsible for having that sort of reaction.

I always remember when I worked in the newsroom, I witnessed the most incredible thing. And I'll often debate the merits of both sides with friends. But my buddy was sitting really concentrating at his computer. He's typing away, and a colleague came up behind him, wet her finger and gave him what's called a wet willy.

Yeah, we have them in America.

You have them in America, so I watched this happen. And she gave Dan a wet willy and his lizard brain kicked in. He just got a fright.

Yeah.

And this person let out a roar and just chased her, and this chase. fortunately, the chase deflated the lizard brain. It's not like he got up and lashed out, but it was a really amazing chase. I think it's so interesting because obviously the wet willy was a bad move.

But this is where we get into self-defense. Yeah, and I get conflicted, I guess.

You can't shove your finger in someone's ear.

You definitely can't, and then you can't be a victim when the person has a reaction to that.

No, I agree, I agree, because it is this lizard brain.

Yeah, they're not thinking they're acting out of fight or flight.

Yeah, completely.

It's immediate reaction, though. If he's going to chase her, I feel like lizard brain is gone at that point. if it was like a quick turn and elbow or something, then I feel like lizard brain.

I think, to be fair, the chase, as he was running, it lessened the lizard brain. It's not like he caught her and got into a huge fight.

His reaction was to get up and get her, just attack, yeah.

It's funny, you're reminded you're something, you are back in Caveman days, you're just like, Ah.

We are animals.

Yeah, we are. We think we're all ahead of that, but we're really not. Oh God.

And not to take it here, because this is-.

It's a good sign.

This is bad.

You know what?

This is why we have to train our law enforcement. So, specifically because they are in fearful situations all the time and they cannot act out of their lizard brain.

Well, no, I think that's why it's so crazy to me, because I always find the police here so scary because they carry weapons. In New Zealand, some carry guns now, but mostly it's tasers, but New Zealand is always stories of that lizard brain kicking in and you suddenly fire a taser off and people screw things up.

Obviously, America has so many issues in our law enforcement in this way where people are shooting people.

Or you're suddenly in these situations where, yeah, it's all on you are, I guess having to deal with your lizard brain activating. It's not like you can intellectually go in there and sort everything out.

Yeah, and a lot of people, I think, think it's just 100 racism, and race is a huge factor here and it's underlying even when people don't know it. But part of it is, I don't think they're necessarily trained to turn that amygdala off. There must be a way to.

Yeah, I think it would be a big help, I guess. That's why they have those crazy courses where you're meant to run through reacting to targets. You see the good guy pop up and then you see the bad guy pop up. And you've got to choose. And that seems like something you have to really train for.

Just desensitization.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, basically yeah.

I mean, another bad place to take it. This is sad, but I have the thought. I want to ask you, if you had the thought when we were there, there could be a shooting here.

Always, that's the unfortunate thing about.

Crowds, crowds anytime you're in a crowd now.

Yeah, it is. That's the world we live in, that I guess when I was a kid, I'd never think about in America or back in New Zealand. Yeah, yeah, crowds feel scary.

If you let your brain go there, you can feel very trapped. Yeah, and if something bad were to happen, there's no chance for me.

Yeah.

And also because it's all scary sounds and it's loud and it could go down.

One of the most surreal things. There was a band called the Eagles of Death Metal and they played at the venue was the Bataclan. There was basically a shooting at that gig and the band hit and traumatic people died horrific.

Knew the drummer at that show for Eagles of death metal?

Yeah, right, the singing ended up in New Zealand. JeSSe HUGHES Yeah, I mean, that really messed with them.

Ever.

That's like the most extreme version of it all.

Of trauma, yeah.

And yeah, and he just wanted some weed just to come down, that's what he needed, and he was just in a fucking state.

Well, that's the real scary stuff for you.

It's Halloween, yeah.

It's Halloween, so.

Is your fear of Chucky gone?

Great question, No.

I was considering having Vincent dress as Chucky for Halloween.

Rob.

But Natalie vetoed it.

Okay, good, like? Very adamantly. No, absolutely not, because what if someone punches him?

Well, not the scary version.

There's no not scary version, they're all scary.

Well, if he's just in overalls and a rainbow sweater with orange hair, No.

That's still scary, it's triggering.

It is, and then if someone punches your kid, that's on you, he's just going to be running around, Oh God, okay.

It was really fun doing a haunted house with you. I loved listening to the audio back, and I was originally it was this episode. I was like, we're going to, like, take the audience through each haunted house. But listening to all of them, literally, it all sounds the same.

Just a lot of me being really, really scared, I want to know how scared were you really? Because you put on a brave face, and I think you did channel your fear into amusement over my fear.

Yeah, you were a big help for me, but no, I definitely. I was scared, like my heart rate was up, I was super sweaty.

Yeah, because you were behind me.

I just had the mic on you, so I came out really for the audience, very brave, but I was yelling, but I just didn't have the mic close to my face.

Right in the first haunted house. We were a pair, you know, we went in together and we felt like a team. By the end. You were many steps behind me, just trying to gather my audio.

Using you as a shield.

Exactly as I predicted, leaving me in the lurch, so I was correct in my fear.

Yeah, and actually, that's really important. You went in first into most of those rooms and that is true bravery. I was behind. And so that is where the coward typically goes.

It was for the sake of the show, otherwise I would have said, you definitely have to go first, I'm not going. I can't be peer pressured either, so I'm surprised I even did this.

Just finally, we all have to watch some scary movies together. Yes, Australian movie which I keep lecturing you about, Talk to me.

Oh my god.

Female empowerment. Really fun scares, and I think if you want to get into horror beyond the Nun and those franchise ones, I reckon it's going to be one for you.

I texted you because my friend and I once watched Scream together, the newest scream we had planned to have. Like a scary movie night we watched that. We're both really scared.

Gave them a massive fright, we did.

We did and then we had to say sorry. We were watching a scary movie and anyway, so we decided we're going to do it again this season and watch something scary. And I asked for your advice.

Yeah, you know, the descent is what I would recommend. There's another thing, just that lift thing reminds me at that film festival I was talking about, I was staying in a motel and every day I'd be in the lift. Ice machines everywhere, by the way. But I have a thing, and I think it's because I'm I don't know what it is.

Yeah, they're scared of you.

Yeah, that happened to me quite a bit this week and it was really starting to get to me, wow, and it's actually affected me now. Because every morning I go for like, a walk, an early morning walk to get a coffee, and it's because I walk so fast. I'll sometimes overtake people.

Wait, that's very conscientious of you, and it's a ding, ding ding to an episode of Synced. I really appreciate you. Because I was just saying, I want men to be a little more aware of their presence when they're around women. Or especially, like one woman walking by themselves, don't come up behind a small woman or any woman walking by herself and just come up behind and walk around.

Yeah, 100 percent. And the other thing that factors in in today's world is we've all got ear pods in. Exactly. So usually I'll whistle or like, walk away, so they sort of look and see that I'm approaching.

Or, like, make a big stomping noise, make a big stomping noise. I've done that, too.

But that doesn't happen now because people are in the world. Because I have long legs and I just tend to, like, you've seen me walk around the neighborhood, I look like I'm just walking so fast.

You're on a mission.

Foot pads here are quite narrow. So yeah, I will just cross the street because there's nothing worse. It's like that lift thing, there's nothing worse than walking past a woman. And she like, jumps. Because you clock the mentality that you're walking around with a lot of the time. Which is, I might get attacked, which is a mindset I don't have because I'm big and tall.

Yeah, and a man.

And probably stupid, so I'm just not thinking about it. So yeah, I cross the road.

Yeah, well, maybe at this film festival people had been in, it was a horror festival.

Yes.

Okay, they'd been watching scary stuff.

But that doesn't make me feel better, I don't want people to look at me and jump.

I know, I know.

I want people to look at me and smile or laugh. Laughter's not great either. I'd rather have a jump than a laugh.

Yeah, see, no, people are just on edge because they've been watching scary stuff.

Okay.

I'll take that, so don't take it personally. Okay? Also two things, one you just talked about walking fast.

It was great to walk with you. I'm so used to walking with people and I'm like, Oh God, hurry up, great walker, great speed.

Yeah, you commented on that. Mm-hmm. And let's take a moment, since we're talking about scary stuff to talk about your movie. Oh, the reason you went to the film Festival.

Yeah, yeah, Mr. Organ. Mr. Organ is out. Yeah, it's been out for a little bit now.

Because he's scary.

He is scary.

He's a real-life scary person.

But yeah, Mr. Organ, it's out in the world. So if you're in a city that has an Alamo or an indie theater, check it might be playing.

Check it out, guys, have a watch.

Thanks Monica. Yeah, yeah, we watched that a long time ago.

We did, it's great. Yeah, it's scary.

It is a bit scary.

People are.

Real life I always say, this real life is always scarier than anything you could make up.