Latest / Weeknight Mysteries Podcast / Ep. 112 | Color Out of Space - Lovecraft & Creepy Folklore Ginny Greenteeth

Transcript

Ep. 112 | Color Out of Space - Lovecraft & Creepy Folklore Ginny Greenteeth · Weeknight Mysteries Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: If anyone followed me on my gaming channel, they might
0:03
Speaker 1: have seen that I was playing the game Call of Cthulhu.
0:06
Speaker 1: I kind of gave up on it, I probably will
0:08
Speaker 1: return to it at some point, but the thing that
0:11
Speaker 1: made me stop playing it was that I started to
0:13
Speaker 1: reread Lovecraft. And it kind of made me realize how
0:17
Speaker 1: unlovedcraftian the game was. I think this is a problem
0:21
Speaker 1: that plays a lot of Lovecraft adaptations, whether it's movies
0:24
Speaker 1: or video games. You can insert as much Lovecraftian lore
0:29
Speaker 1: as you want, but in my opinion this doesn't make
0:31
Speaker 1: it a Lovecraftian horror. I think there's something in Lovecraft
0:35
Speaker 1: writing that is extremely hard to get across in a
0:38
Speaker 1: visual medium. I think maybe that's why it's so hard
0:41
Speaker 1: for people to adapt his works. There's something unseeable or
0:46
Speaker 1: unexplainable in his writings, which is very hard to convey
0:49
Speaker 1: when you're showing the thing visually on the screen. So
0:52
Speaker 1: when I started hearing reviews of The Color Outer Space,
0:55
Speaker 1: I got pretty excited. As people were saying it was
0:59
Speaker 1: one of the most faithful adaptations, it was finally Lovecraft
1:03
Speaker 1: done right, and so I was quite excited to see it.
1:06
Speaker 1: It also stars Nicolas Cage, who is kind of a
1:09
Speaker 1: lovey-more-hate-him kind of actor, but I've got to say I
1:12
Speaker 1: do quite enjoy his films, including The Wicca Man. So
1:16
Speaker 1: I thought I would give it a go and see
1:18
Speaker 1: what the fuss was all about. Is it as faithful
1:21
Speaker 1: as people say? So I've got to say the first
1:24
Speaker 1: impression of this film and the most striking thing about
1:27
Speaker 1: it is the visuals. Every scene is just absolutely stunning
1:31
Speaker 1: to look at. It's a film about color as the
1:34
Speaker 1: title might imply, but they've just really gone to town
1:38
Speaker 1: on the color aspect of this story. It's a film
1:41
Speaker 1: that tells its story with color, I think. It seems
1:45
Speaker 1: like the color is the most important thing on the
1:47
Speaker 1: screen at all times. Everything looks like they've boosted up
1:51
Speaker 1: the saturation to maximum. not in a way that looks
1:54
Speaker 1: wholly unnatural. It just gives everything this gorgeous lush look
1:58
Speaker 1: to it. It's quite an interesting choice for a horror adaptation,
2:03
Speaker 1: especially with Lovecraft. I know whenever I read the stories
2:07
Speaker 1: in my head, they're always very dark, gloomy type of stories,
2:11
Speaker 1: and that's the kind of imagery I have in my head.
2:14
Speaker 1: Generally horror films are not all that colorful. The colors
2:19
Speaker 1: in it remind me almost of the original Suspiria movie.
2:22
Speaker 1: These bright, clashing colors that flash in and out on
2:25
Speaker 1: the screen. There's something really important about the color coding
2:29
Speaker 1: in the movie, and I'd love to see someone go
2:32
Speaker 1: through it, scene by scene and decode every use of
2:35
Speaker 1: color in the film, because as well as the alien color,
2:38
Speaker 1: there's just so much more going on. I've noticed that
2:42
Speaker 1: almost every indoor scene, they seem to be using blue
2:45
Speaker 1: and this orangey-brown color contrasted against each other. Then on
2:49
Speaker 1: the outdoor scenes you've got these greens and purples contrasting,
2:52
Speaker 1: and then each character seems to have their own color coding.
2:56
Speaker 1: For example, the mother character always seems to be wearing
2:59
Speaker 1: some sort of white outfits. The daughter's always wearing black.
3:05
Speaker 1: The ward character who plays the narrator in the original story,
3:08
Speaker 1: he's always seems to be wearing blue. Nicolas Gage is
3:12
Speaker 1: often seen wearing this red check color, which I think
3:15
Speaker 1: might be a reference to the original story. There is
3:19
Speaker 1: a certain fate that meets his equivalent character in the story,
3:22
Speaker 1: and towards the end the red checked cloth plays some
3:25
Speaker 1: sort of role. So it's probably just a nod towards
3:28
Speaker 1: the original story, but yeah, I think there's something really
3:32
Speaker 1: important with the color, even more than obvious, and like
3:35
Speaker 1: I said, I'd love to see someone do an analysis
3:38
Speaker 1: of the color in this movie, and exactly what the
3:40
Speaker 1: meaning of each color is. Even without deciphering everything going on,
3:45
Speaker 1: it's just beautiful to look at. It almost all takes
3:49
Speaker 1: place in the middle of this forest. It's the family
3:52
Speaker 1: who live deep within this woodland. And so every background
3:56
Speaker 1: is just this sea of green. At the beginning of
3:59
Speaker 1: the movie, everything just starts out just beautiful green in
4:03
Speaker 1: the background. And then you get these sort of traces
4:06
Speaker 1: of purple weaved fruit things. The idea of like a
4:10
Speaker 1: purple spiral, it always seems to represent something unnatural. For example,
4:15
Speaker 1: the purple unnatural hair dye in Levine's hair, sort of
4:19
Speaker 1: spiraling through her hair. And then when they go to
4:22
Speaker 1: where Tommy Chong's character, they go towards his house, and
4:26
Speaker 1: he's got these ribbons wrapped around the trees in spiral
4:29
Speaker 1: shapes in the same purple color. Oh, it seems to
4:32
Speaker 1: sort of try and get this idea in your head
4:34
Speaker 1: from the start that this purple magenta color is a
4:37
Speaker 1: kind of unnatural source among the greenery and natural colors
4:40
Speaker 1: of the woodland. Kind of an obvious signal, but it's
4:43
Speaker 1: a nice little bit of foreshadowing. So basically, the basic
4:48
Speaker 1: plot of the story. And I'm going to try not
4:51
Speaker 1: to give too many strong spoilers here, but there will
4:54
Speaker 1: be some mild ones. A meteorite lands in Nicolas Cage's
4:58
Speaker 1: front garden. And then within the meteorite is the color
5:02
Speaker 1: from outer space. And I think when Lovecraft was originally
5:06
Speaker 1: writing the story, he wanted to convey an alien presence
5:09
Speaker 1: that was so incomprehensible to human minds, that the only
5:12
Speaker 1: way they had to describe it was of being a color.
5:15
Speaker 1: So in the original story, He describes it as a
5:18
Speaker 1: color which they've never seen before. It's like an unimaginable color.
5:24
Speaker 1: It's something that doesn't exist in our human world. It's
5:28
Speaker 1: a color that shouldn't exist in nature. Obviously, you can't
5:32
Speaker 1: just invent a new color. So they've used this like
5:35
Speaker 1: magenta color, but I was actually looking on an IMDB
5:39
Speaker 1: and they've got some interesting trivia about the use of
5:41
Speaker 1: the color. They use magenta because it's a color that
5:45
Speaker 1: doesn't exist from a single wavelength of lights as part
5:48
Speaker 1: of the color spectrum. I don't really understand what that
5:51
Speaker 1: means to be honest. It's an extra spectral color that
5:55
Speaker 1: is only perceived by humans in a specific interaction of
5:58
Speaker 1: the optical rods. So anyway, there's an interesting explanation of
6:03
Speaker 1: why they use magenta, but obviously it's a decent replacement
6:06
Speaker 1: for the indescribable color of the original story. And it
6:10
Speaker 1: looks absolutely stunning in the archive. You've got this kind
6:14
Speaker 1: of idea of this magenta color slowly starting to invade
6:17
Speaker 1: the lush greenery of their surroundings. And first it starts out,
6:22
Speaker 1: you know, the little flowers start sprouting. And then you
6:26
Speaker 1: see like the tendrils wrapping around a tree, mirroring the
6:29
Speaker 1: coloring in the daughter's hair and the ribbons and the trees.
6:33
Speaker 1: You just get this really interesting sense. This is where
6:37
Speaker 1: they capture the Lovecraftian element the best. There's this slowly
6:41
Speaker 1: creeping into their lives. This magenta color slowly infecting the
6:46
Speaker 1: world around them. And as it begins to infect the
6:49
Speaker 1: world around them, it starts to affect their mental state.
6:53
Speaker 1: And it's done really effectively. I would say for the
6:57
Speaker 1: first two thirds of the movie, this sort of slow
6:59
Speaker 1: creeping in of this color, this alien color. And beautiful
7:04
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the movie. And also there's a
7:07
Speaker 1: lot of things where they use color to signal danger
7:09
Speaker 1: like where she cracks the egg and has blood in
7:11
Speaker 1: the egg. And the delizards with the bright colors on
7:15
Speaker 1: them to indicate that they might be poisonous or dangerous.
7:19
Speaker 1: You know, always using these colors to signal some kind
7:22
Speaker 1: of present danger or illness or something that is out
7:24
Speaker 1: of place or unnatural. It's also really obvious that they
7:29
Speaker 1: are absolutely passionate about Lovecraft. There's so many little references
7:34
Speaker 1: in there and probably loads that completely went over my head.
7:38
Speaker 1: I'm not like a huge Lovecraft fan, but you know,
7:41
Speaker 1: There's all these like references to things within the Lovecraft universe.
7:46
Speaker 1: And also how it would be in a modern world.
7:49
Speaker 1: So I really like the daughter has the cheap paperback
7:51
Speaker 1: Necronomicon that she's reading. And it is the kind of
7:55
Speaker 1: thing that if this book existed in the real world,
7:58
Speaker 1: this is kind of the format that you would expect
8:00
Speaker 1: to get it in the modern world. Beautiful film. I
8:04
Speaker 1: really love their atmosphere at the beginning of this creeping, invading.
8:09
Speaker 1: It feels really menacing and you don't really know what's
8:11
Speaker 1: going on. And the way it starts to affect the
8:15
Speaker 1: mentality of the family. I think towards the end it
8:18
Speaker 1: starts to fall apart slightly though. It gets to a
8:22
Speaker 1: point where it starts to get a bit too crazy.
8:25
Speaker 1: In the original story, the way the color out of
8:28
Speaker 1: space ultimately affects people and how it affects like livestock
8:31
Speaker 1: is it kind of starts to make them disintegrate. It
8:35
Speaker 1: kind of starts to change things in really subtle ways
8:37
Speaker 1: like they describe how they keep finding animals and they
8:40
Speaker 1: can't really tell what's wrong with them, but they've you
8:43
Speaker 1: know they find them it's like a woodchuck or something
8:45
Speaker 1: like that. And it's been transformed in some way they
8:48
Speaker 1: can't really tell how it just looks unnatural to them
8:51
Speaker 1: and they see like a hare leaping across the road
8:53
Speaker 1: or a rabbit and it's its stride is a bit
8:55
Speaker 1: too long to be normal. It's just something when they
8:58
Speaker 1: see it they can't describe it it's just something unnatural
9:01
Speaker 1: and uncanny about the creatures the way they've been mutated.
9:05
Speaker 1: The movie doesn't go that subtle. Let me just say
9:08
Speaker 1: without getting any spoilers it's very unswaddled in its conveying
9:12
Speaker 1: of the horror. This is sort of the sum of
9:15
Speaker 1: the parts one don't like that much about the film.
9:18
Speaker 1: It starts to take on a bit of like a
9:20
Speaker 1: body horror vibe which would be fine and it's fine
9:22
Speaker 1: for them to stray a bit from the source material
9:25
Speaker 1: but they rely way too much on computer generated effects
9:28
Speaker 1: to achieve these body horror scenes and as good as
9:30
Speaker 1: it is I'm not being down on the people who
9:32
Speaker 1: did these CG effects it just never looks right. You
9:36
Speaker 1: can always just tell it's not really there even if
9:38
Speaker 1: they had a slightly cheaper looking practical effect. I just
9:42
Speaker 1: think it would look so much better it looks so
9:44
Speaker 1: much more realistic and it's a shame I didn't go
9:46
Speaker 1: with that I think it starts to slightly fall apart
9:49
Speaker 1: at that point for me the movie so I'm going
9:50
Speaker 1: to go for some of the things I didn't like
9:52
Speaker 1: in the film. The characters are all kind of a
9:55
Speaker 1: bit stereotypical. You've got an English cage playing Nicholas Cage.
10:01
Speaker 1: You've got Tommy Chong playing Tommy Chong. You've got the
10:05
Speaker 1: stoner teenagey brother. You've got the wife who's down of
10:09
Speaker 1: cancer and you've got the small child who basically acts
10:12
Speaker 1: as the creepy kid similar to the one in Poltergeist
10:15
Speaker 1: who goes there. He basically plays that role and then
10:18
Speaker 1: you've got the the wife cracking snarky teenager. This role
10:22
Speaker 1: seems to be in every movie these days I don't
10:25
Speaker 1: know why they always have to insert this sort of character.
10:28
Speaker 1: It's basically the snarky teenager girl character who always has
10:32
Speaker 1: a one line of every scene. I call it the
10:35
Speaker 1: live Houston character. They did this with the IT movies.
10:40
Speaker 1: They always had to have like witty one line as
10:42
Speaker 1: whenever something scary happens and it kind of ended up
10:45
Speaker 1: sort of reducing the horror factor of a lot of
10:47
Speaker 1: scenes and although it's not too bad in this movie
10:50
Speaker 1: there is a bit of that. There's a bit of
10:52
Speaker 1: a LOL random comedy. I don't know what the obsession
10:56
Speaker 1: of alpacas is. They always have alpacas in there because
11:01
Speaker 1: it's I don't know. I don't know if it's some
11:03
Speaker 1: reference that goes over my head but it's a bit
11:06
Speaker 1: sort of oh look at us how random we are.
11:09
Speaker 1: We've got alpacas I don't know. It's good to have
11:12
Speaker 1: a bit of light relief but I don't know if
11:14
Speaker 1: in this film sometimes it felt a bit out of place.
11:18
Speaker 1: So yeah I was going to say about the characters
11:20
Speaker 1: in the film. I didn't like him too much because
11:23
Speaker 1: they all felt a bit typical. You can tell with
11:27
Speaker 1: this movie they're trying to do something very different with
11:29
Speaker 1: a horror movie and a lot of the characters felt
11:31
Speaker 1: very tropey if you know what I mean they felt
11:33
Speaker 1: very like you'd seen him in every other horror movie
11:36
Speaker 1: and I kind of wish they'd done something slightly different
11:38
Speaker 1: with the characters as well as the movie itself. The
11:42
Speaker 1: final act of the movie it all feels a bit muddled.
11:45
Speaker 1: The problem is the beginning of the film builds up
11:48
Speaker 1: so well this horror and it all sort of ends
11:50
Speaker 1: in a crescendo and it all feels a bit sort
11:52
Speaker 1: of they're just throwing a load of things at your
11:54
Speaker 1: load of elements and whereas I think if they went
11:56
Speaker 1: a bit more slow a bit more slow paced and
11:58
Speaker 1: subtle with the horrors it would be more effective. For
12:02
Speaker 1: example I think there's some genuinely creepy moments for example
12:05
Speaker 1: when there's something that happens to the mother and the
12:07
Speaker 1: youngest son. When it first reveals what happened to them
12:11
Speaker 1: it's pretty horrific. You feel like oh my god that's
12:14
Speaker 1: horrible and the reactions of the family are really good
12:17
Speaker 1: and you kind of feel that horror along with them
12:19
Speaker 1: and then they just kind of they don't know much
12:21
Speaker 1: else with it. They don't explore the horror of that
12:24
Speaker 1: situation enough and I think they could have explored this
12:27
Speaker 1: idea a little bit more what they what they do
12:29
Speaker 1: with the mother and the youngest son is pretty horrific
12:32
Speaker 1: and I think they could have sort of explored the
12:33
Speaker 1: family's reaction to that a little bit more than they
12:36
Speaker 1: do like you'll spoil a little bit further with it.
12:39
Speaker 1: There's another really good moment where they go back to
12:41
Speaker 1: Tommy Jong's house and there's just this sound from outside
12:44
Speaker 1: just the sound design at this moment and the film
12:47
Speaker 1: is really good it has a really sinister effect I
12:49
Speaker 1: think it shows real moments of horror but it's kind
12:52
Speaker 1: of interspersed at this point with a lot of very
12:54
Speaker 1: noisy scenes a lot of very bright flashing colors that
12:57
Speaker 1: are slightly disorientating and I think it kind of takes
12:59
Speaker 1: away from the horror and certain scenes it gets a
13:02
Speaker 1: bit kind of a bit over the top. I'm not
13:06
Speaker 1: being too down on the movie I just think towards
13:08
Speaker 1: the end it could have been torn down a little bit.
13:11
Speaker 1: I understand what they're doing with the colors but it
13:14
Speaker 1: gets so bright and psychedelic that it actually becomes quite
13:17
Speaker 1: difficult to watch it's like I was getting a headache
13:19
Speaker 1: at some point I remember there was a scene where
13:21
Speaker 1: there was like this a blue flashing light from a
13:23
Speaker 1: police car and it was interspersed with this bright magenta
13:26
Speaker 1: color and it was flashing across people's faces and it
13:29
Speaker 1: was just like I was getting a headache from watching
13:31
Speaker 1: it it was so disorientating and you know it's interesting.
13:35
Speaker 1: Visually but it's not horrific it's not a scary scene.
13:39
Speaker 1: I kind of like that they tried to do something
13:41
Speaker 1: slightly different with the what the color does to people
13:43
Speaker 1: and what it does to the animals but I think
13:45
Speaker 1: if they were going to go with CG effects I
13:47
Speaker 1: think if they stuck with what it says in the
13:49
Speaker 1: book it would have been more interesting like in the
13:51
Speaker 1: book everything sort of turns gray and starts to like
13:53
Speaker 1: disintegrate as if it's sort of turned into ash and
13:56
Speaker 1: I think they could have done that quite well with
13:58
Speaker 1: computer generated effects but I think what they Went with
14:02
Speaker 1: it all looked a bit cartoony a bit slightly silly
14:04
Speaker 1: a lot of the CG kind of took me out
14:06
Speaker 1: of the atmosphere of the movie at that point but
14:08
Speaker 1: there were things that they changed from the original story
14:11
Speaker 1: that I had to like I think in the Lovecraft's
14:13
Speaker 1: original short story in the final scene he introduced like
14:16
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of characters that haven't been introduced in
14:18
Speaker 1: the rest of the story like the big climax of
14:21
Speaker 1: the story involves a bunch of people that you don't
14:23
Speaker 1: apart from them the writer you Don't really know any
14:26
Speaker 1: of the other characters I think they do a better
14:29
Speaker 1: job it sort of combines two different parts of the
14:31
Speaker 1: original story to make the end of the movie which
14:33
Speaker 1: they do that I think in a better way all
14:35
Speaker 1: in all I enjoyed the movie I don't want to
14:37
Speaker 1: sound like I'm being down on it I'm trying to
14:39
Speaker 1: list the things that I didn't like but that really
14:41
Speaker 1: liked that there's a modern horror movie that they've tried
14:43
Speaker 1: to do something different with I see so many. Trailers
14:46
Speaker 1: for horror movies coming out and. It just looks like
14:50
Speaker 1: every other horror movie I've seen for the last 10
14:52
Speaker 1: years or so you can tell immediately like beat for
14:55
Speaker 1: beat everything that's going to happen in that movie just
14:57
Speaker 1: from watching a trailer and it's just refreshing to see
15:00
Speaker 1: him finally do something a bit different the visuals and
15:02
Speaker 1: everything with the movie it's completely unique the only thing
15:05
Speaker 1: I can compare it to really is Annihilation and I
15:08
Speaker 1: think Annihilation is quite inspired by the color out of
15:11
Speaker 1: space I think maybe Annihilation. doesn't even better job of
15:15
Speaker 1: being lovecraftian than the color out of space does annihilation
15:18
Speaker 1: kind of to me is like a mashup of lovecraft
15:21
Speaker 1: and jg ballads the crystal world it's just kind of
15:24
Speaker 1: like those two books combined almost i felt like some
15:27
Speaker 1: points this film was trying to emulate annihilation but not
15:30
Speaker 1: quite doing a good enough job of it but as
15:32
Speaker 1: i say on a great different horror movie and interesting
15:35
Speaker 1: enough to elevate it above just a slew of rubbish
15:37
Speaker 1: that comes out these days i really got to give
15:40
Speaker 1: the filmmakers kudos for trying something different and being brave
15:43
Speaker 1: enough in it yeah like i say the first the
15:45
Speaker 1: first two-thirds of the movie i love the last third
15:49
Speaker 1: of the movie i didn't like as much but i
15:51
Speaker 1: didn't hate it it wasn't boring it was just kind
15:53
Speaker 1: of lost its pacing a little bit it kind of
15:55
Speaker 1: went a bit too much over the top for me
15:57
Speaker 1: i say go watch it it's interesting at least is
15:59
Speaker 1: it the best lovecraft adaptation i don't know i haven't
16:02
Speaker 1: seen them all has it captured the feeling of a
16:04
Speaker 1: lovecraft possibly yes it's it's got the sort of weird
16:07
Speaker 1: unexplained even towards the end of it you don't quite
16:10
Speaker 1: know what the horror is it leaves enough questions in
16:13
Speaker 1: your mind this is what i like about lovecraft is
16:16
Speaker 1: he'll describe things in detail but you'll leave enough out
16:18
Speaker 1: for your mind to sort of turn it over i'll
16:20
Speaker 1: give you an example the mountains of madness are rereading
16:23
Speaker 1: it and the way the way they describe the city
16:25
Speaker 1: in the book they give such a detailed account of
16:27
Speaker 1: the structures of the buildings when they enter this forgotten
16:30
Speaker 1: city they give such a detailed account of all the
16:32
Speaker 1: structures of the buildings how they're built what material they
16:36
Speaker 1: Made out of all the rock you could probably just
16:38
Speaker 1: draw a picture an accurate map of the city just
16:41
Speaker 1: from the description but there's enough in the descriptions to
16:43
Speaker 1: know that there's something unnatural about it that the narrator
16:46
Speaker 1: can't describe and although you build up in your mind
16:48
Speaker 1: this accurate image of the city it leaves something out
16:51
Speaker 1: because the narrator can't quite tell you what it is
16:53
Speaker 1: it's just something unnatural and evil about it it kind
16:56
Speaker 1: of causes you to turn this image of the city
16:58
Speaker 1: around in. your head and ponder on it and that's
17:02
Speaker 1: kind of I think where the horror is it's indescribable
17:04
Speaker 1: and I think this movie does a good job of
17:06
Speaker 1: conveying that sort of or knowable horror it does a
17:08
Speaker 1: good job of capturing that essence of the weird cosmic
17:11
Speaker 1: horror that you can't quite place in your mind it
17:13
Speaker 1: doesn't quite make sense to a human brain and I
17:16
Speaker 1: think I think people who read Lovecraft will have a
17:18
Speaker 1: or will have their own opinion on what makes a
17:20
Speaker 1: Lovecraftian horror but for me it does a fairly good
17:23
Speaker 1: job and I would recommend it and I've heard them
17:27
Speaker 1: making like two more in the same series so I'll
17:29
Speaker 1: be excited to see them I'll definitely be watching them
17:32
Speaker 1: when they come out now if you've seen it let
17:33
Speaker 1: me know what you think as well I'll be interested
17:35
Speaker 1: to know if other people enjoyed it or not oh
17:38
Speaker 1: and I wanted to say as well as someone else
17:39
Speaker 1: you'll notice more and more as you re-watch it there
17:42
Speaker 1: seems to be a lot of symbolism and images in
17:44
Speaker 1: there which you might not spot on the first time
17:46
Speaker 1: round or you might not. Make the connections for example
17:50
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the film when Lavinere is doing
17:52
Speaker 1: that weird ritual you see these dull legs hung up
17:55
Speaker 1: in tree and they're kind of swastika pattern and then
17:57
Speaker 1: later on which I didn't realize I didn't spot at
17:59
Speaker 1: first as they're going towards Tommy Chong's house you see
18:02
Speaker 1: a dull hung up in the tree there and it
18:04
Speaker 1: kind of I didn't make the connection at first but
18:06
Speaker 1: then I think well what wonder if there's some connection
18:08
Speaker 1: between Tommy Chong's he's kind of called Ezra between. Ezra
18:13
Speaker 1: and Lavinia that isn't quite explained in the movie but
18:16
Speaker 1: maybe re-watching it you'll see more links between these different
18:18
Speaker 1: characters it seems like the kind of movie where there's
18:21
Speaker 1: going to be a lot of these like little weird
18:22
Speaker 1: symbols and easter eggs and things to spot and I
18:25
Speaker 1: think re-watching it you'll get more out of it so
18:27
Speaker 1: yeah that was another thing I think might be important
18:30
Speaker 1: is probably a movie that requires a few viewings to
18:32
Speaker 1: appreciate fully. It was April 1979 the Melling family were
18:37
Speaker 1: spending their easter holiday in Morning Smith a picturesque village
18:41
Speaker 1: in Cornwall England. On Saturday the 17th the two children
18:45
Speaker 1: of the family 12-year-old June and 9-year-old Vicky had headed
18:48
Speaker 1: out on their own to explore the area. They were
18:52
Speaker 1: passing by St. Mornan and St. Stephen's Church when all
18:55
Speaker 1: of a sudden in the sky above the bell tower
18:57
Speaker 1: there appeared a huge creature. It looked like a man
19:01
Speaker 1: but it had the wings of a bird. The girls
19:04
Speaker 1: ran back to their parents and they were so disturbed
19:06
Speaker 1: by what they'd seen that their father cut the holiday short.
19:10
Speaker 1: those girls it seems had had an encounter with the
19:12
Speaker 1: ale man of mourning. The origins of the ale man
19:16
Speaker 1: are unclear. A lot of websites they read whilst researching
19:20
Speaker 1: this reference a 1926 article in the Cornish Echo about
19:24
Speaker 1: two boys that were chased by some sort of a
19:26
Speaker 1: large and ferocious bird. The problem is no website seems
19:30
Speaker 1: to provide any pictures of the article so you can
19:32
Speaker 1: read it for yourself. I had to go to the
19:35
Speaker 1: book The Aleman and Others by Jonathan Downes to find
19:38
Speaker 1: the article and read it for myself. The bird was
19:42
Speaker 1: described as being about three feet long with a body
19:44
Speaker 1: like a duck, cream and brown colored plumage with black
19:48
Speaker 1: on the tips of the wings. Now that doesn't sound
19:51
Speaker 1: anything like an ale man to me but there's so
19:53
Speaker 1: many websites that are talking about this article and linking
19:56
Speaker 1: it to the ale man story that I had to
19:58
Speaker 1: put that in it seems more likely that the boys
20:00
Speaker 1: were chased by an angry goose rather than some sort
20:03
Speaker 1: of ale headed cryptid. The first clue we might have
20:06
Speaker 1: to the ale man's origins is when the surrealist artist
20:09
Speaker 1: Max Ernst visited Cornwall in 1937 with a group of
20:13
Speaker 1: other artists. Apparently this group put into all sorts of
20:17
Speaker 1: weird stuff including occultism. The story goes that Ernst and
20:21
Speaker 1: his cohorts went off into some Cornish woods one night
20:24
Speaker 1: and performed strange rituals in an attempt to summon animal-human
20:28
Speaker 1: hybrid entities. Max Ernst himself had a weird obsession with
20:32
Speaker 1: birds and he often painted an alter ego called Lop-Lop
20:35
Speaker 1: a shape-shifting part-man part-bird creature. He also painted scenes that
20:40
Speaker 1: looking back on them now seem to mirror future encounters
20:43
Speaker 1: with the Ale Man. And take a look at this
20:46
Speaker 1: one it was painted in 1924 and it's titled Two
20:49
Speaker 1: Children Are Threatened by a Nightingale. The weird thing about
20:53
Speaker 1: this is there are two children and a nightingale but
20:55
Speaker 1: it's also this eerie human figure hovering above the building
20:58
Speaker 1: carrying away another child in its arms. Apparently the painting
21:03
Speaker 1: was inspired by a fever-induced hallucination Ernst had as a
21:06
Speaker 1: child but to me it reminds me of June and
21:08
Speaker 1: Vicky Melling seeing that humanoid creature hovering over the morning church.
21:13
Speaker 1: So did Ernst and co. summon the ale man? Maybe
21:17
Speaker 1: it's some sort of surrealist egregore. something that stepped out
21:20
Speaker 1: from the picture frame and took on a life of
21:22
Speaker 1: its own. Or perhaps the ale man is the spirit
21:26
Speaker 1: of Ernst himself. It might just be a coincidence but
21:29
Speaker 1: Max Ernst died on the 1st of April, 1976. This
21:34
Speaker 1: was just two weeks before the Melling girls had their encounter.
21:38
Speaker 1: And three months after the girls' encounter the ale man
21:41
Speaker 1: was seen again. Behind the morning church the land slops
21:45
Speaker 1: down through a wooded area until it reaches a beach.
21:49
Speaker 1: It was in this wooded area that two 14-year-old girls
21:52
Speaker 1: were camping, Miss Sally Chapman and Barbara Perry. At around
21:56
Speaker 1: 10 p.m. on the 3rd of July, 1976 the girls
22:00
Speaker 1: were awoken by a strange hissing noise. They looked around
22:04
Speaker 1: outside their tents and saw a weird figure standing among
22:07
Speaker 1: the pine trees. He was described as being as tall
22:11
Speaker 1: as a man but had the face of an owl
22:13
Speaker 1: and was covered in gray feathers. His eyes were large
22:17
Speaker 1: and glowed red and it had big pointed ears. On
22:20
Speaker 1: its feet were large black pints like claws. At first
22:24
Speaker 1: the girls thought it was someone in a costume but
22:26
Speaker 1: then the creature flew up into the air and disappeared
22:29
Speaker 1: into the trees. The following day another two girls hadn't
22:33
Speaker 1: encountered with the ale man in the same area. A
22:36
Speaker 1: letter was sent to a local paper from a girl
22:39
Speaker 1: saying that on the 4th of July, 1976 she and
22:42
Speaker 1: her sister were playing in the wood behind the morning
22:44
Speaker 1: church when they saw a large creature up in a tree.
22:48
Speaker 1: It was described as being as big as a man
22:50
Speaker 1: but it had legs bent backwards like a bird. Its
22:54
Speaker 1: eyes were red and its feet looked like sharp black
22:56
Speaker 1: crap claws. Unlike the last encounter the creature then flew
23:01
Speaker 1: upwards and disappeared above the treetops. The first two encounters
23:05
Speaker 1: were reported by a man named Doc Shields. Now Doc
23:09
Speaker 1: Shields is an eccentric character to say the least, an artist,
23:13
Speaker 1: stage magician and monster hunter with an interest in the occult.
23:17
Speaker 1: At around the time of the Ale Man sightings he
23:19
Speaker 1: was taking part in a hunt for the Morgar. This
23:23
Speaker 1: is a sea monster that supposedly lived in the waters
23:26
Speaker 1: around Cornwall. In March of 1976 two photos of the
23:30
Speaker 1: Morgar were sent to a local paper from someone named
23:33
Speaker 1: Mary F. Doc Shields came on a scene and DNN
23:36
Speaker 1: asked that he was going to try and summon the
23:38
Speaker 1: Morgar to appear. He then orchestrated an elaborate magical ritual
23:42
Speaker 1: on the beach in Cornwall involving naked witches which were
23:45
Speaker 1: his own daughters dancing around. As you can imagine this
23:49
Speaker 1: brought a lot of press attention for Doc Shields. It
23:53
Speaker 1: was because of his reputation for hunting monsters that he
23:55
Speaker 1: was approached first by a June and Vicki Milling's father
23:58
Speaker 1: and later by Sally Chapman and Barbara Perry and they
24:01
Speaker 1: both provided him with eyewitness accounts and drawings of the
24:04
Speaker 1: Ale Man. Now there is a problem here. Doc Shields
24:09
Speaker 1: does have a reputation for being a bit of a prankster.
24:12
Speaker 1: Over the years he's written numerous books about how to
24:15
Speaker 1: fake paranormal phenomena for stage and he has books like
24:18
Speaker 1: The Shields Effect, How to Become a Psychic Superstar. It
24:22
Speaker 1: teaches you how to create a sort of mythos around
24:24
Speaker 1: yourself which you can leverage for publicity and fame. Many
24:28
Speaker 1: people suspect that Mary F., that mysterious woman that sent
24:32
Speaker 1: the photos of the Morgar to the newspaper was actually
24:34
Speaker 1: Doc Shields sowing the seeds for an elaborate hoax. Some
24:38
Speaker 1: also suspect that Doc Shields invented the story of the
24:41
Speaker 1: Ale Man. As far as I can tell nobody else
24:45
Speaker 1: has ever been able to track down the mailing family
24:47
Speaker 1: or the two girls saw the creature in the woods.
24:51
Speaker 1: It's very possible that he never existed at all. Similarities
24:55
Speaker 1: between the eyewitness drawings suggest that they might have been
24:58
Speaker 1: drawn by the same person although it does say that
25:00
Speaker 1: the drawings are based on eyewitness sketches so Shields might
25:03
Speaker 1: have redrawn them himself from the children's drawings. Some people
25:07
Speaker 1: have also analyzed the handwriting between these two accounts and
25:11
Speaker 1: they think they might have been written by one person.
25:14
Speaker 1: I don't know much about handwriting analysis so I can't
25:16
Speaker 1: really say for sure but there's something about how the
25:19
Speaker 1: doctor both the eyes drift slightly to the right in
25:21
Speaker 1: both the accounts but as I say I don't know
25:23
Speaker 1: much about the subject so I can't really comment on
25:26
Speaker 1: it myself. There's no real proof that Doc Shields invented
25:30
Speaker 1: the ale man. It could be as he says he
25:33
Speaker 1: had a reputation as a monster hunter so he was
25:35
Speaker 1: genuinely approached by people that had seen something strange. Shields
25:40
Speaker 1: seems to be a chaotic neutral sort of character. a
25:43
Speaker 1: true surrealist who deliberately soars the seeds of confusion and
25:46
Speaker 1: doubt around all that he does. It doesn't necessarily mean
25:50
Speaker 1: that everything that he's involved in is a hoax but
25:53
Speaker 1: it does mean that we should take it all with
25:54
Speaker 1: a hifty pinch of salt. After the Ale Man flap
25:58
Speaker 1: of 1976 there were sporadic sightings. According to the book
26:03
Speaker 1: Alien Animals by Janet and Colin Board there were two
26:06
Speaker 1: more sightings of the Ale Man in 1978. Once by
26:10
Speaker 1: a 16-year-old girl and a few months later by three
26:13
Speaker 1: young French girls but looking into these cases a bit
26:16
Speaker 1: more Doc Shields' name crops up yet again as the
26:19
Speaker 1: source of these stories. It doesn't necessarily mean that the fake.
26:24
Speaker 1: I suspect at that time anyone who had an encounter
26:27
Speaker 1: with the AO man would think of contacting Doc Shields.
26:31
Speaker 1: 11 years later in 1989 there was another encounter and
26:34
Speaker 1: this time it seems that Shields had nothing to do
26:36
Speaker 1: with it, at least not directly. There was a young
26:40
Speaker 1: couple known as Gavin and Sally although that's not their
26:42
Speaker 1: real names. They'd heard the legend of the ale man
26:46
Speaker 1: and decided to go into the woods behind Mornin' Church
26:49
Speaker 1: to investigate. Gavin later contacted the paranormal researcher Jonathan Downs
26:54
Speaker 1: author of the book The Ale Man and others I
26:56
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier. He related his story about what happened that
27:00
Speaker 1: night in the woods. He said we had a torch
27:03
Speaker 1: and I was shining its beam across the trunks about
27:06
Speaker 1: 15 feet off the ground. Every couple of hours we
27:10
Speaker 1: would walk along the fringe off the wood and this
27:12
Speaker 1: was the third time that evening and it was beginning
27:14
Speaker 1: to get dark. From a distance the trees looked black
27:18
Speaker 1: but close up the branches and trunks could be seen.
27:21
Speaker 1: We saw the animal at about 9.30pm. It was standing
27:26
Speaker 1: on a thick branch with its wings sort of held
27:28
Speaker 1: up at the arms. I'd say it was about 5
27:31
Speaker 1: feet tall. The legs had high angles and the feet
27:35
Speaker 1: were large and black with two huge toes on the
27:37
Speaker 1: visible side. The creature was gray with brown and the
27:41
Speaker 1: eyes definitely glowed. On seeing us its head jerked down
27:45
Speaker 1: and forwards, its wings lifted and it just jumped backwards.
27:50
Speaker 1: As it did its legs folded up we ran away.
27:53
Speaker 1: Six years later in 1995 a letter was sent to
27:56
Speaker 1: a local paper. It claimed to be from a student
28:00
Speaker 1: of marine biology from Chicago. SHE'D BEEN ON HOLIDAY IN
28:04
Speaker 1: MORNON SMITH AND WAS WALKING THROUGH THE WOODS BEHIND THE
28:06
Speaker 1: CHURCH AT AROUND 9.15 WHEN SHE SAW IN A TREE
28:10
Speaker 1: A CREATURE DESCRIBED AS THE SIZE OF A MAN WITH
28:12
Speaker 1: A GASTLY FACE, A WIDE MOUTH GLOWING EYES AND POINTED EARS.
28:17
Speaker 1: IT HAD HUGE CLAWED WINGS AND WAS COVERED IN FEATHERS
28:19
Speaker 1: OF SILVER GRAY COLOR. THE THING HAD LONG BIRD LEGS
28:23
Speaker 1: WHICH TERMINATED IN LARGE BLACK CLAWS. ALL ATTEMPTS TO TRACK
28:28
Speaker 1: DOWN THIS CHICAGO AND WITNESS HAVE FAILED. Many suspect the
28:32
Speaker 1: letter to be another of Doc Shields' pranks, although there's
28:35
Speaker 1: no real proof either way. Sightings continued up until the
28:39
Speaker 1: present day but most don't seem to have much more
28:41
Speaker 1: information about them. So instead let's look at some unusual
28:46
Speaker 1: footage and this was captured via the internet channel called
28:49
Speaker 1: Ghost Adventures of Cornwall. Thank you very much to Mark
28:53
Speaker 1: for letting me use your footage in my video or
28:55
Speaker 1: put a link to the original video in the description.
28:58
Speaker 1: They decided one night to investigate St. Mornan and St.
29:01
Speaker 1: Stephen's Church but there's one bit where the camera pans
29:04
Speaker 1: across the graveyard and this figure is standing in the background.
29:08
Speaker 1: There was two people in the graveyard, the guy holding
29:11
Speaker 1: the camera and his friend who was stood behind him
29:13
Speaker 1: at the time. They didn't notice this strange honed man
29:17
Speaker 1: until they played the footage back frame by frame. Could
29:21
Speaker 1: this be the Alman finally caught on camera? I don't
29:24
Speaker 1: know if the Alman is a hoax. that could very
29:28
Speaker 1: well be the case. However, I am a strong believer
29:31
Speaker 1: in the idea that a fictional story can take on
29:34
Speaker 1: a life of its own if enough people can be
29:36
Speaker 1: convinced that it's real. I talked about this in my
29:39
Speaker 1: Ghostwatch video how the fictional Ghost of Pipes managed to
29:42
Speaker 1: possess the minds of many of its younger viewers giving
29:45
Speaker 1: some of them psychological effects that lasted long after the
29:48
Speaker 1: program had finished one person even took their own life.
29:52
Speaker 1: There's also the case of the Slender Man. It started
29:55
Speaker 1: out as a photoshop contest and ended up with two
29:58
Speaker 1: girls dragging their friend into the woods and stabbing her
30:01
Speaker 1: 19 times because they thought they were receiving instructions from
30:04
Speaker 1: the slender man himself. Maybe something like this could have
30:08
Speaker 1: happened with the alman. You could look at it from
30:11
Speaker 1: a purely psychological perspective. You convince people that the alman
30:15
Speaker 1: exists and next time someone hears a strange noise or
30:18
Speaker 1: sees a dark shape in the woods behind morning church,
30:21
Speaker 1: they might believe that they hadn't encountered with the alman itself. Oh,
30:26
Speaker 1: you could get a bit more out there. You could
30:29
Speaker 1: look at the Alman as a kind of topper. A
30:32
Speaker 1: thought form made flesh. Could these strange rituals performed by
30:36
Speaker 1: shields and urns really have conjured something more solid up?
30:40
Speaker 1: Maybe Huxingate was a method for willing the Alman into existence,
30:44
Speaker 1: getting enough people to believe in it that it actually
30:46
Speaker 1: becomes a reality. A decade-long prank and a genuine work
30:51
Speaker 1: of magic at the same time. That might go a
30:54
Speaker 1: bit far for some viewers but I've been interested in
30:56
Speaker 1: the interaction between the mind and physical reality ever since
31:00
Speaker 1: I read the holographic universe when I was younger. I'm
31:03
Speaker 1: not sure if I totally believe that the mind can
31:06
Speaker 1: create an alman out of nothing but it's the sort
31:08
Speaker 1: of thing that I like to speculate on and hey
31:10
Speaker 1: it's nearly Halloween so I'm allowed to indulge in some
31:13
Speaker 1: spooky speculation. The alman, he might be real, he might
31:17
Speaker 1: be a prank, he might be in a elaborate work
31:20
Speaker 1: of surrealist or maybe he's all those things at the
31:22
Speaker 1: same time. So I hope you enjoyed this typically conclusionless video.
31:28
Speaker 1: I don't really like telling people what they should think
31:30
Speaker 1: but I like giving them something to think about so
31:32
Speaker 1: hopefully found it interesting. October always puts me in the
31:36
Speaker 1: mood for a good spooky story so I hope you
31:39
Speaker 1: guys are enjoying the content. Here's some more recordings you
31:43
Speaker 1: might enjoy. Check out the creepy folklore playlist if you
31:46
Speaker 1: like this sort of thing.