Latest / Weeknight Mysteries Podcast / Ep. 114 | Color Out of Space - Lovecraft & The Disturbing Case Of The Łódź Skinhunt

Transcript

Ep. 114 | Color Out of Space - Lovecraft & The Disturbing Case Of The Łódź Skinhunt · 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 in the archive. So
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: when I started hearing reviews of The Color Outer Space,
• 0:56
  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.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: It also stars Nicolas Cage, who is kind of a
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: LaVere Moore hate him kind of actor, but I've got
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: to say I do quite enjoy his films, including The
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Wicca Man. So I thought I would give it a
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: go and see what the fuss was all about. Is
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: it as faithful as people say? So I've got to
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: say the first impression of this film and the most
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: striking thing about it is the visuals. Every scene is
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: just absolutely stunning to look at. It's a film about
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: color as the title might imply, but they've just really
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: gone to town on the color aspect of this story.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: It's a film that tells its story with color, I think.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: It seems like the color is the most important thing
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: on the screen at all times. Everything looks like they've
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: boosted up the saturation to maximum. not in a way
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: that looks wholly unnatural. It just gives everything this gorgeous
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: lush look to it. It's quite an interesting choice for
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: a horror adaptation, especially with Lovecraft. I know whenever I
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: read the stories in my head, they're always very dark,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: gloomy type of stories, and that's the kind of imagery
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: I have in my head. Generally horror films are not
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: all that colorful. The colors in it remind me almost
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: of the original Suspiria movie. These bright, clashing colors that
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: flash in and out on the screen. There's something really
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: important about the color coding in the movie, and I'd
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: love to see someone go through it, scene by scene
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: and decode every use of color in the film. As
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: well as the alien color. There's just so much more
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: going on. I've noticed that almost every indoor scene, they
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: seem to be using blue and this orangey-brown color contrast
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: to the game to each other. And then on the
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: outdoor scenes you've got these greens and purples contrasting. And
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: then each character seems to have their own color coding.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: For example, the mother character always seems to be wearing
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: some sort of white outfits. The daughter's always wearing black.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: The ward character who plays the narrator in the original story,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: he's always seems to be wearing blue. Nicolas Gage is
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: often seen wearing this red check color, which I think
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: might be a reference to the original story. There is
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: a certain fate that meets his equivalent character in the
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: story and towards the end the red checked cloth plays
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: some sort of role. So it's probably just a nod
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: towards the original story. But yeah, I think there's something
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: really important with the color. Even more than obvious. And
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: like I said, I'd love to see someone doing analysis
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: of the color in this movie and exactly what the
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: meaning of each color is. Even without deciphering everything going on.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: it's just beautiful to look at. It almost all takes
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: place in the middle of this forest. It's the family
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: who live deep within this woodland. And so every background
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: is just this sea of green. At the beginning of
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: the movie, everything just starts out just beautiful green in
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: the background. And then you get these sort of traces
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: of purple weaved through things. The idea of like a
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: purple spiral. It always seems to represent something unnatural. For example,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: the purple unnatural hair dye in Levine's hair, sort of
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: spiraling through her hair. And then when they go to
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Tommy Chong's character, they go towards his house and he's
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: got these ribbons wrapped around the trees and spiral shapes
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: in the same purple color. It seems to sort of
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: try and get this idea in your head from the
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: start that this purple magenta color is a kind of
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: unnatural source among the greenery and natural colors of the woodland.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: It's kind of an obvious signal, but it's a nice
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: little bit of foreshadowing. So basically the basic plot of
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: the story. And I'm going to try not to give
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: too many strong spoilers here, but there will be some
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: mild ones. A meteorite lands in Nicolas Cage's front garden.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: And then within the meteorite is the color from outer space.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: And I think when Lovecraft was originally writing the story,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: he wanted to convey an alien presence that was so
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: incomprehensible to human minds that the only way they had
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: to describe it was of being a color. So in
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: the original story he describes it as a color which
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: they've never seen before. It's like an unimaginable color. It's
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: something that doesn't exist in our human world. It's a
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: color that shouldn't exist in nature. Obviously you can't just
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: invent a new color, so they've used this magenta color.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: But I was actually looking on an IMDB and they've
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: got some interesting trivia about the use of the color.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: They use magenta because it's a color that doesn't exist
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: from a single wavelength of light as part of the
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: color spectrum of visible light. I don't really understand what
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: that means to be honest. It's an extra spectral color
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: that is only perceived by humans in a specific interaction
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: of the optical rods. So anyway, there's an interesting explanation
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: of why they use magenta, but obviously it's a decent
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: replacement for the indescribable color of the original story. It
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: looks absolutely stunning in the archive. You've got this idea
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: of this magenta color slowly starting to invade the lush
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: greenery of their surroundings. First it starts out, the little
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: flowers start sprouting and then you see the tendrils wrapping
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: around trees, mirroring the coloring in the daughter's hair and
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: the ribbons and the trees. You just get this really
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: interesting sense. This is where they capture the Lovecraftian element
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: the best. There's this slowly creeping into their lives, this
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: magenta color slowly infecting the world around them. And as
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: it begins to infect the world around them, it starts
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: to affect their mental state. It's done really effectively. I
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: would say for the first two-thirds of the movie, this
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: sort of slow creeping in of this color, this alien color.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: The beautiful at the beginning of the movie, I know
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: also there's a lot of things where they use color
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: to signal danger like where she cracks the egg and
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: is blood in the egg and the delizards with the
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: bright colors on them to indicate that they might be
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: poisonous or dangerous. You know, always using these colors to
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: signal some kind of present danger or illness or something
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: that is out of place or unnatural. It's also really
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: obvious that they are absolutely passionate about Lovecraft. There's so
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: many little references in there and probably loads that completely
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: went over my head. I'm not like a huge Lovecraft fan,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: but you know, there's all these like references to things
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: within the Lovecraft universe. And also how it would be
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: in a modern world. So I really like the daughter
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: has the cheap paperback Necronomicon that she's reading. And it
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: is the kind of thing that if this book existed
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: in the real world, this is kind of the format
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: that you would expect to get it in the modern world.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: beautiful film. I really love the atmosphere at the beginning
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: of this creeping, invading. It feels really menacing and you
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: don't really know what's going on and the way it
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: starts to affect the mentality of the family. I think
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: towards the end it starts to fall apart slightly though.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: It gets to a point where it starts to get
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: a bit too crazy. In the original story, The way
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: the color out of space ultimately affects people and how
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: it affects like livestock is it kind of starts to
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: make them disintegrate. It kind of starts to change things
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: in really subtle ways like they describe how they keep
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: finding animals and they can't really tell what's wrong with them,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: but they've, you know, they find them, it's like a
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: woodchuck or something like that. It's been transformed in some
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: way they can't really tell how it just looks unnatural
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: to them and they see like a hare leaping across
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: the road or a rabbit and it's, its stride is
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: a bit too long to be normal. It's just something,
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: when they say it, they can't describe it, it's just
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: something unnatural and uncanny about the creatures the way they've
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: been mutated. The movie doesn't go that subtle, let me
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: just say. Without getting any spoilers, it's very unswaddled in
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: its conveying of the horror. This is sort of the,
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: some of the parts one don't like that much about
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: the film. It starts to take on a bit of
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: like a body horror vibe, which would be fine and
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: it's fine for them to stray a bit from the
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: source material, but they rely way too much on computer
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: generated effects to achieve these body horror scenes. And as
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: good as it is, I'm not being down on the
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: people who did these CG effects. It just never looks right.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: You can always just tell it's not really there. Even
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: if they had a slightly cheaper looking practical effect, I
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: just think it would look so much better, it looks
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: so much more realistic and it's a shame they didn't
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: go with that. I think it starts to slightly fall
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: apart at that point for me, the movie. So I'm
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: going to go for some of the things I didn't
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: like in the film. The characters are all kind of
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: a bit stereotypical. You've got an English Cage playing Nicolas Cage.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: You've got Tommy Chong playing Tommy Chong. You've got the
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: stoner teenager brother. You've got the wife who's down of
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: cancer and you've got the small child who basically acts
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: as the creepy kid similar to the one in Poltergeist
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: who goes there. Here basically plays that role and then
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: you've got the the wife cracking snarky teenager. This role
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: seems to be in every movie these days. I don't
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: know why they always have to insert this sort of character.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: It's basically the snarky teenage girl character who always has
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: a one line of every scene. I call it the
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: live Hewson character. They did this with the It movies.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: They always have to have like witty one line as
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: whenever something scary happens. It kind of ended up sort
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: of reducing the horror factor of a lot of scenes.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: And although it's not too bad in this movie, there
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: is a bit of that. There's a bit of a
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: low random comedy. I don't know what the obsession of
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: alpacas is. They always have alpacas in there because it's
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know if it's some reference
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: that goes over my head but it's a bit sort of,
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: oh look at us how random we are. We've got alpacas.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: I don't know. It's good to have a bit of
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: light relief but I don't know if in this film
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: sometimes it felt a bit out of place. So yeah,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: I was going to say about the characters in the film.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: I didn't like him too much because he all felt
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: a bit typical. You can tell with this movie they're
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: trying to do something very different with a horror movie
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: and a lot of the characters felt very tropey. If
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean, they felt very like you'd
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: seen him in every other horror movie. And I kind
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: of wish they'd done something slightly different with the characters
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: as well as the movie itself. The final act of
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: the movie, it all feels a bit muddled. The problem
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: is the beginning of the film builds up so well
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: this horror. And it all sort of ends in a
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: crescendo and it all feels a bit sort of they're
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: just throwing a load of things at your load of elements.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: And whereas I think if they went a bit more slow,
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: a bit more slow-paced and subtle with the horrors, it
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: would be more effective. For example, I think there's some
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: genuinely creepy moments, for example when there's something that happens
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: to the mother and the younger son. When it first
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: reveals what happens to them, it's pretty horrific. You feel like,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: oh my god, that's horrible. And the reactions of the
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: family are really good and you kind of feel that
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: horror along with them. And then they just kind of,
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: they don't know much else with it. They don't explore
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: the horror of that situation enough. And I think they
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: could have explored this idea a little bit more what
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: they do with the mother and the younger son is
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: pretty horrific. And I think they could have sort of
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: explored the family's reaction to that a little bit more
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: than they do. like you'll spoil a little bit further
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: with it. And there's another really good moment where they
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: go back to Tommy Jong's house and there's just this
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: sound from outside. Just the sound design at this moment
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: in the film is really good. It has a really
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: sinister effect, I think. It shows real moments of horror,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: but it's kind of interspersed at this point with a
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: lot of very noisy scenes, a lot of very bright
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: flashing colors that are slightly disorientated. I think it kind
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: of takes away from the horror in certain scenes. It
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: gets a bit kind of a bit over the top.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: I'm not being too down on the movie, I just
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: think towards the end it could have been torn down
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: a little bit. I understand what they're doing with the colors,
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: but it gets so bright and psychedelic that it actually
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: becomes quite difficult to watch. It's like I was getting
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: a headache at some point. I remember there was a
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: scene where there was like this a blue flashing light
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: from a police car and it was interspersed with this
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: bright magenta color and it was flashing across people's faces.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: And it was just like I was getting a headache
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: from watching it, it was so disorientating and you know
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: it's interesting visually but it's not horrific, it's not a
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: scary scene. It kind of like that they tried to
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: do something slightly different with what the color does to
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: people and what it does to the animals. But I
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: think if they were going to go with CG effects,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: I think if they stuck with what it says in
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: the book, it would have been more interesting. Like in
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: the book, everything sort of turns grey and starts to
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: like disintegrate as if it's sort of turned into ash.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: And I think they could have done that quite well
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: with computer generated effects. But I think what they went
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: with it all looked a bit cartoony, a bit slightly silly,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: a lot of the CG kind of took me out
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: of the atmosphere of the movie at that point. But
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: the more things that they changed from the original story
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: that I had to liked, I think in the Lovecraft's
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: original short story. In the final scene, he introduced like
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: a whole bunch of characters that haven't been introduced in
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: the rest of the story. Like the big climax of
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: the story involves a bunch of people that you don't,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: apart from the narrator, you don't really know any of
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: the other characters. I think they do a better job.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: It sort of combines two different parts of the original
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: story to make the end of the movie, which they
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: do that I think in a better way. All in all,
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: I enjoyed the movie, I don't want to sound like
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: I'm being down on it. I'm trying to list the
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: things that I didn't like, but I really like that
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: there's a modern horror movie that they've tried to do
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: something different with. I see so many trailers for horror
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: movies coming out and it just looks like every other
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: horror movie I've seen for the last 10 years or so.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: You can tell immediately, like beat for beat, everything that's
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: going to happen in that movie, just from watching a trailer.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: And it's just refreshing to see them finally do something
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: a bit different. The visuals and everything with the movie,
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: it's completely unique. The only thing I can compare it
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: to really is Annihilation. And I think Annihilation is quite
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: inspired by the color out of space. I think maybe
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: Annihilation doesn't even better job of being a Lovecraftian than
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: The Color Out of Space does. Annihilation kind of, to me,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: is like a mashup of Lovecraft and J.D. Ballad's, The
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: Crystal World. It's just kind of like those two books
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: combined almost. I felt like some points this film was
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: trying to emulate Annihilation, but not quite doing a good
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: enough job of it. But as I say, all in all,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: great different horror movie. And interesting enough to elevate it
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: above just the slew of rubbish that comes out these days.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: I really got to give the filmmakers kudos for trying
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: something different and being brave enough in it. Like I said,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: the first two thirds of the movie I loved, the
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: last third of the movie I didn't like as much,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: I didn't hate it. It wasn't boring. It was just
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: kind of lost its pacing a little bit. It kind
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: of went a bit too much over the top for me.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: I say go watch it. It's interesting at least. Is
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: it the best Lovecraft adaptation? I don't know. I haven't
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: seen them all. Has it captured the feeling of a
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: Lovecraft movie? Possibly, yes. It's got the sort of weird
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: unexplained even towards the end of it. You don't quite
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: know what the horror is. It leaves enough questions in
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: your mind. This is what I like about Lovecraft is.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: you'll describe things in detail. But you'll leave enough out
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: for your mind to sort of turn it over. I'll
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: give you an example. The mountains of madness are re-raising it.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: And the way they describe the city in the book,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: they give such a detailed account of the structures of
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: the buildings. When they enter this forgotten city, they give
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: such a detailed account of all the structures of the buildings,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: how they're built, what material they made, how they're made,
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: how they're made, how they're made, you could probably just
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: draw a picture and accurately map it off the city
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: from the description. But there's enough in the descriptions to
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: know that there's something unnatural about it that the narrator
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: can't describe. And although you build up in your mind
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: this accurate image of the city, it leaves something out
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: because the narrator can't quite tell you what it is.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: It's just something unnatural and evil about it. It kind
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: of causes you to turn this image of the city
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: around in your head and ponder on it. And that's
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: kind of, I think, where the horror is, it's indescribable.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: And I think this movie does a good job of
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: conveying that sort of, or knowable horror. It does a
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: good job of capturing that essence of the weird cosmic
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: horror that you can't quite place in your mind. It
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: doesn't quite make sense to a human brain. And I
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: think people who read Lovecraft will all have their own
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: opinion on what makes a Lovecraftian horror. But for me,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: it does a fairly good job. And I would recommend it.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: And I've heard them making like two more in the
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: same series. So I'll be excited to see them. I'll
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: definitely be watching them when they come out. Now, if
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: you've seen it, let me know what you think as well.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: I'll be interested to know if other people have enjoyed
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: it or not. Oh, and I wanted to say as
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: well as something else, you'll notice more and more as
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: you rewatch it. There seems to be a lot of
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: symbolism and images in there. which you might not spot
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: on the first time around or you might not make
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: the connections. For example, at the beginning of the film
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: when Lavinia is doing that weird ritual, you see these
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: dull legs hung up in the tree in a swastika pattern.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: And then later on, which I didn't realize, I didn't
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: spot at first as they're going towards Tommy Chong's house.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: You see a dull hung up in the tree there.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: And I didn't make the connection at first. But then
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: I think, well, I wonder if there's some connection between
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Tommy Chong's, he's called Ezra, between Ezra and Lavinere that
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: isn't quite explained in the movie, but maybe re-watching it,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: you'll see more links between these different characters. It seems
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: like the kind of movie where there's going to be
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: a lot of these like little weird symbols and easter
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: eggs and things to spot. And I think re-watching it,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: you'll get more out of it. So yeah, that was
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: another thing I think might be important, is probably a
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: movie that requires a few viewings to appreciate fully. Hello, everybody.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: Today's investigation is about two of Canada's sickest saviour killers,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Paul Bernardo and Carla Halmonka. Paul Bernardo grew up in Scarborough, Ontario.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: His upbringing is typical of a lot of saviour killers.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: His father was extremely abusive. Paul grew up watching his
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: mother receive regular beatings and his sister being sexually assaulted
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: by her own dad. His father also had habit of
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: prowling around in neighborhood at night and peeping into young
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: girls' windows, a habit which later seemed to rub off
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: on Paul. Outwardly though, as a child, it didn't seem
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: to affect him much. Paul Bernardo was confident and outgoing.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: He joined the scouts and as he got older, he
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: went on to become a scout counselor, where he was
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: very popular with the young children. At the age of sixteen,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: he discovered that the man who had raised him was
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: not actually his biological father. His mother had had an
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: affair with another man and got him pregnant with Paul.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: This revelation that he was the bastard child of infidelity,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: triggered a deep hatred of women within Paul Bernardo. Fueled
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: by the abuse he had witnessed growing up, he developed dark, misogynistic, sadistic,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: sexual fantasies. His first job was working for the Amway
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: multi-level marketing company, essentially a pyramid scheme. Through his work,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: he learned useful psychological sales techniques. He studied books on
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: motivational speaking, the art of selling and pick-up artistry. He
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: didn't just use these skills on the job though. He
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: also used them to manipulate the girls he was dating.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: He liked submissive girls. Ones that he could abuse emotionally
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: and humiliate in public. Ones that went along with his
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: rough sex games. Over the years, he learned a lot
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: about how to control women. His sexual sadism increased in
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: severity until in July of 1987, aged just 22, Paul
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: Bernardo committed his first known rape attack. A 21-year-old woman
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: was walking home from work at 1 a.m. when Paul
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: snuck up behind her and dragged her to the ground.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: She was right outside her house at the time. Over
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: the course of about 30 minutes, he repeatedly beat the woman,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: whilst vaginally and aimfully penetrating her. A few days later,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: he committed a very similar attack on a 19-year-old woman. Again,
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: she was walking home in the early hours of the
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: morning and was outside her house when he attacked. Hall
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: pushed her to the ground and dragged her into her backyard. There,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: He held a knife to her throat and threatened to
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: slit it if she made a sound. He then tied
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: a rope around her neck and started to beat and
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: molest her. Anytime she moved, he would tighten the rope
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: and strangle her. The attack lasted over an hour. When
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: he was done, he bound her wrists and tied her
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: by the neck to a fence then he left. A
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: couple of months later, Paul met Carla her marker. Carla's
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: childhood probably didn't involve as much abuse as Paul's, but
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: she does recall many occasions where her drunken father would
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: fight with her mother. During these outbursts, her and her
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: sisters would huddle together for safety. Within her teenage years,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: she began to display strange behavior. She became obsessed with
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: crime stories and subjects of death and occultism. She would
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: hold strange spiritualist sciences for her friends. On one occasion,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: she threw her friend's hamster out a window, killing it.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: One of her high school boyfriend recalls how she was
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: preoccupied with the thought of dying, wanting to know how
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: it felt to be killed, even cutting herself with a knife.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: Of course, none of these things in isolation would be
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: too strange as far as teenage behavior goes. But given
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: what we know about Carla today, they were probably warning
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: signs of a deepest psychological problem. There was something different
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: about Carla compared to the other girls that Paul Bernardo
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: had dated. Instead of running away from his sadistic urges,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: she seemed to encourage it, becoming a willing and submissive
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: participant in his increasingly violent sex games. Over time, Paul
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: became more and more controlling. He began telling her how
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: to dress, how to style her hair and what kind
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: of makeup to wear. He began undermining her confidence and
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: isolating her from her friends. Slowly, he was turning her
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: into his slave. This new relationship didn't stop Paul from
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: prowling the streets at night and attacking innocent women though.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: Over the course of three years, he attacked at least
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: 16 different women, and those are only the ones that
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: are definitely linked to Paul Bernardo. The figure is more
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: likely around 25 women. To describe each attack could be
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: a long and repetitive process. Each attack followed a very
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: similar pattern, but with each one the level of violence
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: and cruelty increased. He would pick a young girl walking
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: alone at night. Fourteen or fifteen-year-olds were his favorite. Some
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: were older, in their early twenties, but they looked young.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: Clearly he had a type. He would lurk at a
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: bus stop till they went past, then he would pounce
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: on them from behind and drag them to the ground,
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: usually subduing them with a few blows to the head.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: He would then drag them to a more secluded location
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: and tie them up, often with a rope around their
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: neck so that he could strangle them. If they struggled,
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: he would hold a knife to their neck and threaten
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: to slit their throats. He lacked to punch them a lot,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: in the back, in the head, in the legs. On
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: one occasion, he twisted the woman's arm so hard that
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: he fractured the bone. The rapes all followed a similar pattern,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: first sodomy, then vaginal penetration. While he was doing this,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: he would push the girl's face into the ground and
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: run his knife up and down her back. After that
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: he would force her to perform felicia on him. Sometimes
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: he would insert foreign objects into the victims of a
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: gina or anus, usually sticks and twigs. One time he
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: raped a woman with his knife blade, lacerating her uterus.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: Making the victim talk was also a big part of
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: the attacks. He would force her to call herself a
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: bitch in a slut. He would make her say that
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: she loved what he was doing to her, that he
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: was the best she ever had. These attacks usually lasted
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: between 30 minutes and 2 hours. Sometimes he would get
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: up and leave so that the victim thought that the
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: ordeal was over, only to return moment later and continue
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: assaulting her. When he was finally done, he usually stole
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: some sort of memento, a driver's license or ID card,
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: something with a photograph to remember them by. As time
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: went on, police noticed the similarities between these attacks and
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: realized they were the work of a serial rapist. Unfortunately
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: because he always struck in the middle of the night
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: and made his victims face the floor, it was very
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: hard to get a clear identification of the attacker. Pretty
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: soon news articles were appearing in the local papers warning
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: people to be vigilance. They even gave him a nickname,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: the Scarborough Rapist. On May 26, 1990, Paul struck again,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: attacking a 19-year-old woman behind a school. After an hour
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: of torture and sexual abuse, he turned around and yanked
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: out a fistful of a pubic hair as something to
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: remember her by. This enabled her to get a good
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: look at her attacker, so much so that the police
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: were able to compile a very accurate composite image of
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: the Scarborough rapist. The police received two tip-offs from people
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: who believed that Paul Bernardo was the attacker. One was
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: from a bank teller who thought that he looked a
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: lot like the composite image. Another report was from Tina Smirns,
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: the wife of one of Paul's best friends. The police
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: brought Paul in for questioning and he willingly gave them
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: a DNA sample. He also admitted that he did look
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: a lot like the composite image, but here's the crazy thing.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: He was so charming and likable that they decided that
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: there was no way such a well-adjusted young man could
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: be the attacker. They assumed Tina Smirns must just have
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: been trying to claim the reward money, so they let
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: Paul go and they didn't send his DNA for testing.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: By this point in their lives, Paul and Carla were
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: engaged and Carla had got a job at a veterinary clinic.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: Paul was spending a lot of time with Carla's family
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: at her house and he'd taken a particular liking to
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: Carla's 15-year-old sister, Tammy. On nights when he stayed over,
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: he would sneak outside and peer in on Tammy through
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: her bedroom window. Carla even helped Paul out by breaking
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: the locks on Tammy's window so he could sneak in
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: while she was sleeping and masturbate. He told Carla how
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: much he wanted to sleep with her sister and with
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: a little bit of persuasion she agreed to let him. So,
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: one night they crushed up several sleeping tablets and served
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: them up to Tammy mixed into spaghetti sauce. Pretty soon
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: she'd fallen asleep and while she was unconscious, Paul had
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: sex with her while Carla watched. This wasn't enough to
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: satiate Paul's urges. Five months later he told Carla that
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: he wanted to do it again, by this point he'd
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: moved in with Carla and was living with her and
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: her family. He persuaded Carla to steal some halothane from
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: her job at the veterinary practice. Halothane is a very
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: powerful anesthetic. They use it to knock animals out when
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: they're undergoing surgery. It's very dangerous if it's not administered
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: by a professional. On Christmas Eve in 1990 whilst her
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: parents slept upstairs, Carla served Tammy an alcoholic cocktail at
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: least with sleeping pills. Once she'd fallen asleep they dragged
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: it into the basement and set up the recording camera.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: Paul liked making whole movies, most of them were innocent
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: family snaps, short glimpses into everyday life with Carla and
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: her family. He did however, like making another type of
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: movie and Tammy Homalka was about to have a starring role.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: Carla took a cloth and soaked it in the halothane,
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: then she held it over Tammy's face to make sure
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: she was really unconscious. Then while the camera was rolling,
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: Paul and Carla took turns having sex with Tammy's unconscious body.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: At one point Paul forces Carla to suck her sister's
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: menstrual blood from her fingers. She complains that it tastes
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: disgusting and Paul beats her for not showing enough enthusiasm.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: In the early hours of the morning whilst Paul was
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: sodomizing Tammy, she choked on her own vomit and stopped breathing.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: By the time they noticed her face had turned blue
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: and there was no pulse whatsoever. In a panic they
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: attempted to resuscitate her with CPR but they failed. Paramedics
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: were called and she was rushed to hospital but by
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: that point there was nothing they could do. On Christmas
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: Day 1990 Tammy Homalka was pronounced dead. Carla and Paul
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: were questioned about Tammy's death. They told police that she
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: simply had passed out from drinking too much and must
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: have vomited in her sleep. The problem with this story
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: is the halothane-soaked rag had caused a massive chemical burn
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: on the side of Tammy's face and around her mouth
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: and nose. For some reason, despite this, the authorities accepted
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: Paul and Carla's version of events and ruled Tammy's death
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: to be accidental. After that Paul started making Carla dress
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: up in her dead sister's clothes and they would have
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: sex on Tammy's bed among her collection of teddy bears.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: One detail I find particularly sick is that at Tammy's
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: funeral they placed a photograph of themselves in her coffin.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: This was the image they picked to put inside the
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: coffin alongside Tammy's corpse. a little girl murdered on Christmas Day.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: Something about it just comes across as incredibly twisted. The
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: mocking grins in the photo seem to be saying we
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: know what we did and we think it's funny. By
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: June of 1991 Carla and Paul were married and had
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: moved into their own place. As a wedding gift to Paul,
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: Carla brought home the drug-done unconscious body of a 15-year-old
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: girl she'd befriended years before. She'd taken her out for
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: a girl shopping trip before playing her with spiked cocktails.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: They filmed themselves sexually abusing the girl while she slept.
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: The next morning that girl, known only as Jane Doe,
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: had no recollection of what had happened and assumed she
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: just had too much to drink. A month later they
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: invited Jane Doe back to their place and spiked her
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: again with sleeping pills. Once more they videotaped themselves raping
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: the girl but this time she stopped breathing halfway through.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: They filmed for an ambulance but Jane Doe started breathing
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: again shortly afterwards so they rang the emergency services back
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: again and told them that everything was alright now. The
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: ambulance was recalled and Jane Doe went home once more
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: without realizing the terrible things that they'd done to her.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: On June 15, 1991, 14-year-old Leslie Mahaffey was returning home.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: She was supposed to be home by 11pm but she'd
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: stayed out drinking with her friends into the early hours
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: of the morning. As punishment her mother had bolted the
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: doors locking Leslie out of the house. Unfortunately for Leslie
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: that night Paul Bernardo was also under prom. He spotted
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: the young girl alone outside her house and struck up
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: a conversation with her. Apparently she was unfazed by a
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: strange man prowling around her property at 2 am. He
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: invited her back to his car for a cigarette then
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: produced a knife and forced her into the vehicle. He
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: took her back to his place and let her blindfolded
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: into the front room. There he made a kneel on
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: the ground and state her name and age whilst he
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: recorded her with the camera. He then led her into
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: the bathroom and made her urinate whilst he filmed between
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: her legs. After that he took her to the spare
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: bedroom and tied her by the wrists to the headboard.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: He told her to stop crying when she didn't punch
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: her in the face splitting her lip over her mental braces.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: That night Leslie was subjected to multiple rapes, beatings and humiliations.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: She was forced to masturbate for the camera. He made
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: her say how much she loved it, how he was
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: the best she ever had. He made a drink champagne
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: list with sleeping pills to make her more compliant. When
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: Carla awoke later that morning she saw Leslie and Paul
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: in bed together and she was infuriated. Not because he'd
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: kidnapped and sexually assaulted a child but because he'd used
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: their best champagne flutes. Over the following several hours Carla
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: and Paul subjected Leslie to various sexual humiliations whilst they
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: recorded the whole thing on their camcorder. At one point
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: on the recording tape whilst Leslie is forced to stick
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: a tongue into Paul's anus he says to her, I'm
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: judging you right now. The next two hours are going
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: to determine what I do to you okay. Right now
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: you're scoring perfect. Sometime after midnight they were finally done
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: with her. By this point they'd been torturing her for
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: around 24 hours. She lay in a fetal position on
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: the floor, a bruised and broken wreck bleeding from every orifice.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: They knew there was no way they could let Leslie go.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: Although they'd kept her blindfolded she might still be able
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: to identify them to the police. In a hushed conversation
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: in another room Carla and Paul decided that they had
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: to kill her. Whilst Paul went to fetch what he
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: needed Carla returned to Leslie and put a blanket over her.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: She gave her a teddy bear to hug and told
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: her to swallow some sleeping pills. As Leslie drifted off
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: to sleep Paul returned with a length of electrical cord.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: He wrapped it around her neck and strangled her. It
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: took two attempts before she was finally dead. They dumped
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: her body in the basement and covered her with a sheet.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: Whilst Leslie's corpse grew cold. Carla's parents paid a visit
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: to the house and they enjoyed a family meal together
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: in the room right above her head. The next day
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: Paul visited the hardware store and bought 12 bags of
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: cement powder. Back at the house they laid out Leslie's
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: body on an old top hole in sheet and cut
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: her into pieces. They encased each piece in a lump
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: of cement and then over the course of a few
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: days they made numerous trips to Lake Gibson. 18 miles
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: away from their home and dumped the pieces into the water.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: One particularly large block of cement containing Leslie's torso and
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: head was too heavy to carry to the lake so
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: they just left it by the water's edge. It would
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: later be found by a father and son out on
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: a fishing trip. The third and last known kidnapping occurred
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: on April 16, 1992. Carla and Paul were driving around
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: looking for a suitable victim. Sadly for 15-year-old Kristen French
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: They spotted her walking home from school so they parked
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: up in a nearby church parking lot and waited for
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: her to walk by. Carla approached holding a map and
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: asked her for directions. Whilst Kristen was distracted looking at
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: the map, Paul approached from behind, held a knife to
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: a neck and forced it into the car. Back at
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: the house her treatment was very much the same as
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: what they'd done to Leslie Mahaffey. She was drugged with
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: alcohol and tranquilizers, repeatedly beaten and raped, urinated on and
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: forced to perform humiliating acts for the camera. She was
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: violated by the wine bottle and made to tell them
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: how much she loved it and how amazing Paul Bernardo was.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: Unlike Leslie Mahaffey, they didn't bother to blindfold her because
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: this time they knew beforehand that they were going to
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: murder her. Pretty soon after her disappearance her parents filed
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: a missing persons report. When police found one of Kristen's
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: shoes in a church parking lot they suspected that foul
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: play was involved. One of the cruel things that Paul
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: did was to make Kristen watch news reports of her
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: father pleading for a safe return. Between torture sessions they
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: would lock Kristen in a cupboard. Sometimes Paul would leave
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: to get food and during those moments Kristen would plead
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: with Carla to let her go. Of course this fell
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: on deaf ears. After three days of torture, with Kristen
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: on the bed with her hands bound behind her back,
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: Paul mounted her from behind and wrapped an electrical cord
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: tightly around her throat. He bent down and whispered something
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: into it here. Carla didn't catch all of it but
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: she heard him say, what do you know about dying?
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: He then tightened the cord and Kristen began to choke.
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: He timed himself on the bedside clock, strangling their airways
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: for a full seven minutes to ensure she was dead.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: When they were done they stashed her corpse in the
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: basement and went to Carla's parents' house for another family meal.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: On April 30th Kristen's body was found dumped in a
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: ditch 45 minutes away from where Paul and Carla lived.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: The corpse had been thoroughly washed and all her hair
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: had been removed. One weird detail here is that Carla
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: Homolka started to become convinced that her home was haunted.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: She would hear weird knocks and bangs coming from the
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: basement and sometimes she'd hear someone calling her name even
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: when nobody else was home. She even consulted a medium
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: to try and cleanse the house of its evil spirits.
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: Much like Poe's tale of the Telltale Heart, these haunting
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: noises were probably a sign of the guilt plaguing Carla's mind,
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: slowly unraveling her last shreds of mental stability. Paul Bernardo's
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: mental state was also becoming increasingly unstable. He became even
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: more abusive towards Carla. 190 beat her so badly that
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: he left her with two extremely swollen black eyes. This
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: was the final straw for Carla. She fled the house
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: and went to stay with her family friend whose husband
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: was a police officer. Upon seeing her injuries they took
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: her to a hospital and the police were called in.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: This is when police started to seriously investigate Paul Bernardo.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: By now it was February 1993 and they finally decided
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: to test the DNA samples that he provided three years
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: earlier and they found out that he was in fact
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: the Scarborough rapist. Upon further questioning Carla realized that they'd
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: tied her and Paul to the murdered girls. She got
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: herself a good lawyer and agreed to fully cooperate in
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: the investigation in return for leniency. Paul was arrested and
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: the house was searched. Police found a detailed diary written
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: by Paul describing each of his rapes and murders. Eventually
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: the recording recordings were recovered too. The recording tapes were
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: instrumental in the court proceedings. Obviously Paul Bernardo had very
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: little defense. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with the
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: possibility of parole after 25 years. Carla's defense was a
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: little more complicated. It really depends on how much of
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: a story you believe. She was clearly the victim of
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: abuse and she painted herself as a completely unwilling participant
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: in the crimes. She said that Paul threatened to murder
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: her family if she didn't comply. Some believe that she
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: was completely brainwashed. On the other hand she had multiple
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: chances to get away, especially why she was still living
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: in her parents' house. The recording tapes played in court
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: showed that instead of being an unwilling victim she was
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: an enthusiastic and eager participant in the crimes. Unfortunately her
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: plea for leniency had already been accepted before the recording
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: tapes had been seen. She was given just a 12-year
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: prison sentence. A number of photographs surfaced whilst Carla was incarcerated.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: These ones I find particularly interesting. A convicted pedophile and
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: child murderer happily playing on a rocking horse and in
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: a child's playhouse. It's as if she's taunting the victim's
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: families from inside jail. In 2005 she was granted parole.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: Since leaving prison she's married again and she's had three children.
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: In 2017 it was reported that she was volunteering at
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: an elementary school, although the media storm this generated means
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: she stopped volunteering shortly after it was discovered. As for
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: Paul Bernardo he still languishes in prison. He was up
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: for parole in 2018 but it was denied because of
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: his high likelihood of re-offending. As with most incarcerated child
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: masterists he probably regularly received the kind of treatment he
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: dished out to the victims. If you're new here and
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: you found this interesting then please consider subscribing. I know
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: I'm beginning to sound like a stuck record at this
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: point but I really couldn't make these recordings without your
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: help so thank you very much. In the archive now
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: there should be some more recordings if you're in the
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: mood for something else. Thanks once again for watching.