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Short Stuff: Spooky Recommendations · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. Josh, Chuck, Jerry
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: sitting in for Dave. This is short stuff, Chuck. And
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: this is a slightly different kind of short stuff, I
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: would say, for Halloween.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 0:17
  Speaker 3: Halloween and maybe beyond, everyone, because we had an idea
• 0:20
  Speaker 3: a while ago about perhaps adding a episode here and
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: there where we do recommendations, because people are always saying, Like, hey,
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: when you guys recommend books and movies and recipes and stuff,
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: we really like that kind of thing. And this is
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: maybe a chance to formalize it. So we're going to
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: ask you to let us know what you think about this.
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: If maybe once a month in place of the regular Shorty,
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: we recommend things that we're watching and reading and eating
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: and drinking or whatever. It could be like a new
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: sleeping regimen.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: Maybe not that.
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: It could be.
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: Uh, so maybe we'll just, uh, like one of us
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: will take their recommendation and then after the break, the
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: other one we'll do theirs.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: How does that sound?
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Uh, sure.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: We're like, we should say everybody, we're literally figuring this
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: out as we go along in stuff you should know fashion.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: Why don't you, why don't you take it away? Let's
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: hear what you're recommending.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Oh, geez. Well, um, you know, I love me some
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: good horror movies, so I thought maybe I would just
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: recommend a few good horror movies for Halloween. All right.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Let's, let's chat. Okay.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Have you ever seen Trick or Treat? Trick-R-Treat?
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: I don't think so. Is it the movie from the 80s?
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: No, it's from the aughts, I think, the mid-aughts.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: All right, I'm seeing it's from 2007.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, bizarrely stars Anna Paquin, the Oscar winner, the youngest
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Oscar winner of all time.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: And it's just this little sleeper movie that flew below
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: everybody's radar and But it's actually one of the most
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: interesting Halloween anthologies ever. It's really woven together. There's some
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: like legitimately scary stuff to it. There's a lot of
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: creepy stuff. There's a lot of funny stuff, which to
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: me is like if you're able to pull off comedy
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: with horror, that's a that's a real trick to do.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: And I think they did that because it wasn't all comedy.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: It was like, you know, kind of here or there.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: There was some funny stuff.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: Now, I'm seeing that it's an anthology film.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: So it's several stories all by the same person. It's
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: not one of those sort of co-directed things?
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: No, no, no. It's all the same person. And I
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: don't remember who directed it. I think it was a
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: writer-director kind of thing.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Michael Dougherty. Okay.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: So he did it all. And the way that it's
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: an anthology is, you know, like with a normal anthology,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: there's like somebody telling somebody, a story and then yeah
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: in between them you come back to that that present
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: you know reality.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah like the crypt keeper or something yeah.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Exactly with this everything is all woven together and it
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: says like earlier that night or something like that so
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: it kind of jumps around a little bit but it's
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: not like it's really well done as far as horror
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: anthologies go Awesome.
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: Well, it says here in my little lookup device that
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: it has gained cult status, even though it was not
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: very much seen.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I totally buy that. Yeah. I don't want to
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: make it sound like it's a high art or cinema.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: It's not supposed to be. So it's just a fun
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: little it's very bloody. So don't don't make any mistake
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: about that. Basically, if I ever recommend a movie, it's
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: either disturbing or bloody or both.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: OK.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: You got another scary movie?
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Oh, sure. I got a million of them. Let's see
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: which one. I will say, I'll tell you one that
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: I've seen a couple times now. There's a movie called Moloch. Moloch? Moloch?
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: How do you spell it?
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: M-O-L-O-C-H. It's the name of a demon. I think like
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: a real deal demon. It's not made up.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Although I don't think this is based on a true story.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: This looks scary.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: It is scary. It's not supposed to be funny. And
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: it is kind of an attempt at cinema. I think
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: it's Dutch. Yeah. Dutch folk horror. And it's about this.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: I don't want to give too much away, but it's
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: about this family that's basically being targeted by Moloch the demon.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: And there's all sorts of really interesting reasons why. And
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: there's like subtitles and everything. Do subtitles bother most people?
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: I know they don't bother you, but do you know
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: anyone who are like, I can't watch movies because of subtitles?
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: Well, I don't know.
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: I mean, back when we were doing Movie Crush, I
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: do remember hearing from people that some people like it
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: didn't bother them. Some people loved foreign cinema and some
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: people like had like really. like solid reasons for not
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: liking it. Like either they maybe had dyslexia or, uh,
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: it was distracting for them or like in an ADHD
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: sort of way. So there's all sorts of reasons someone
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: might like them other than like, well, I don't like
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: to read.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Huh? I'd never considered that, but that's really good point. Great. Okay, good. Well,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: if you don't like subtitled movies, I don't think there's
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: an English dub to, I think it is all subtitles, unfortunately, but, um,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: There's a movie that I told you about before that
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: I loved. It's called Lamb, the A24 movie with the
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: girl with the dragon tattoo. Yes.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: The original one. Yes.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: And it is completely bizarre and off the wall, but
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: it's also one of the most heart-rending movies I've ever seen.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: It's so, it's just so, there's parts of it that
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: you just want to like hug everybody, but it's considered
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: a horror movie.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: Oh, really? Yeah.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: It is in Icelandic, I think. And there's subtitles. And
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: it's so well done that I watched it once without subtitles.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: I think maybe even the first time. And I knew
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: I basically got everything that was going on except for
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: like a couple conversations that really didn't matter that much.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's cool. I like that. I think I've had
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: that experience before.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it is. It's kind of fun because you're like,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: I'm part of the universal humanity. I don't even need words. Yeah.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: I don't even need to understand what's coming out of
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: your mouth.
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: Well, this is spooky season for movies for me, you know,
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: and I watch a lot during October. And I just
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: last night was looking up, like, what are the best
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: horror movies of the last, you know, of the 2020s
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: and have a short list going.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: So I'll add these to the list, and I appreciate it.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: All right. Well, let's take a break and then come
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: back and we'll hear about your stuff. All right. All right.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: We are back.
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: And I am going to recommend a couple of spooky books, everyone,
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: because I have talked before kind of briefly on the
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: show about having never really gotten into horror or fiction.
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: But jumped back on the bandwagon when I randomly picked
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: up a book that just looked cool from the author
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: Keith Rawson. a very great writer from Portland who Stephen King,
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: no less than Stephen King, has championed. And I had
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: started reading, you know, I read his duology, Devil by
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: Name and Fever House, which was a zombie thing, and
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: both of those are great. And then I read his
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: follow-up to that, which was Coffin Moon, which was about
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: a vampire story, which was great. I think all of
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: these have been optioned, by the way, so hopefully they'll
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: come to a movie or TV screen near you.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: And then I got an advanced copy.
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: I know I shouted it out briefly, but I want
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: to talk to everyone about his newest book, Crone. As
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: we know, a crone is a witch. And this is
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: a witchy story. And again, I don't want to give
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: too much away, but it is a really great witchy
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: story that goes in all sorts of kind of cool directions.
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: What I love about Keith's books is that they are,
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: first of all, they are expertly written. He's just a really,
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: really great writer. And after having written read some lesser
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: horror novels since then. I picked up another couple by
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: other people. I now really appreciate like how great Keith
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: is just with the, with the pen or the thingies
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: on the keyboard. Yeah. So he's a great writer and,
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: and all of his books had this humanity and this
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: heart and they always involve some sort of family story
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: going on that. So a lot of it is heartbreaking stories.
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: at the same time as being, like, super scary. And
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: he has such a way with describing things in such
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: a gross, gross way.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah? That's tough to do, man.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, he uses.
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: Words, like, that people don't use anymore, like torpor and
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: stuff like that, where, like, I got to look it
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: up even to see what that is. And so he's
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: just a very great descriptor, which are my favorite kinds
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: of writers. So check out Krohn. And all of his books.
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: But Krohn is the most recent one. And I'm in
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: touch with him via Instagram. And he seems like a
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: really good dude as well.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Well, sure. If you're on somebody's bandwagon, they're probably a
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: good dude.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And we're both adoption dads. So we have that
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: in common.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: Oh, very cool. Very cool.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: And then the next one, you know, I think I
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: told you.
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to shout it out because I told
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: you on the plane on the way home from the cruise.
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: The one I was reading about the theme park wasn't
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: very good. But I did read another pretty good one
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: called Hidden Pictures. It is a horror fiction novel by...
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: Jason Reculac. And it was a New York Times bestseller.
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: And I'll just read the description on the back because
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: it doesn't give too much away. Mallory Quinn is fresh
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: out of rehab when she takes a job babysitting Ted
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: and Caroline Maxwell's five-year-old son, Teddy. She immediately bonds with
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: a sweet boy who is never without his sketchbook. His
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: drawings are the usual fare, trees, rabbits, balloons, but one
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: day he draws something different, a man dragging a lifeless body.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: Yikes.
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: Then his stick figures evolve into increasingly sophisticated sketches depicting
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: one disturbing scene after another. Is Teddy troubled, or is
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: he channeling forces he cannot possibly understand? Knowing just how
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: crazy it all sounds, Mallory must decipher the images and
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: save Teddy before it's too late.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Nice. Who wrote that?
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: His name is Jason Reculac, I guess is how you
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: pronounce it. And Stephen King also has a cover quote saying,
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: a one-of-a-kind thriller.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: I loved it. And it's good. And kind of one
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: of the fun things.
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: Here is the author draws these pictures along the way.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, that is cool.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: As well.
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: So he's drawing these pictures, and it's the first sort
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: of creepy one. There's just a a nice impact you
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: have when you're seeing these kind of just kid drawings
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: and all of a sudden you see the creepy one.
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: And the story takes a lot of twists and turns.
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: I'm sure this is going to be optioned. I'm sure
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: it already has and it's in that pipeline because it
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: would make, I think it would make a pretty fun movie.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: You know, I think that a horror story is one
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: of the hardest types to carry through an entire novel
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: because you have to pay everything out just so or
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: you have to go all in and then top every
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: scene essentially, or else it's just like, what are you doing?
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: I think short stories are the ideal or is the
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: ideal format for horror. So if you can pull off
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: a horror novel, you're doing something pretty spectacular in my opinion. Not,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: not many people can do that.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm with you.
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: I'm kind of new to the whole thing, but we
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: have read a bunch of short horror for, you know,
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: our Halloween episodes.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: So I think I'm with you on that.
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: So it's, uh, I'm not sure how much more I'm
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: going to go down the horror lane because I'm kind
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: of one for two with the non Keith Rawson's when
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: he was I was four for four with him.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: And I'll read every book that Keith puts out like
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: as soon as it comes out. I'm like that big
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: of a fan at this point.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Keith spoiled you.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: He has spoiled me. Can't go back.
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: I need to read a Stephen King. I know it's
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: kind of silly that I haven't.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: So wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You've never read
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: a Stephen King novel of any like none of them.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Is that what you're saying? Is that what I'm picking up?
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: No, I've never read any horror or any Stephen King.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: And so I've had people recommend various ones. I would
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: like to read a really scary and maybe maybe I
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: should read The Shining. That might be a good one
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: to start out with.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: So it is nothing like the movie, you know, right?
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: You are. You know that from being.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: I've heard a lot of that. Yeah. Okay.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Um. I think Stephen King's actually a great example of
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: what I'm talking about. My beef with his novels is
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: that very rarely by the ending are you just like, man,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: this is a great ending. It's like a great build up.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: The payoff's up there. His short story collections are out
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: of this world, though.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, maybe consider that.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: Maybe I should do that.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. But let me know what you think of
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: whatever Stephen King book you read.
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: Do you have a particular short story or anthology of
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: his that you can recommend?
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: I like the earlier ones like Skeleton Crew or whatever
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: the other one is. I can't remember. It had like
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: a bandaged hand with an eye in the middle of
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: the palm.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: Ooh.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Creepy stuff. But he had some really good, like
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: genuinely scary short stories. And then his son, Owen, whose
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: pen name is Joe Hill. He has a great story collection,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: short story collection called 20th Century Ghosts that I think
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: blows his dad out of the water.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: Oh, OK.
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: Well, he has a quote on here, too, from Joe Hill.
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: One of the best and most inventive ghost stories I
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: read in years. The beautiful dark rush of a novel.
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: I didn't realize that was his son. I guess he
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: he did that to keep from appearing as a nepo baby.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: And I think that was a great move. And yeah,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: even if his dad's calling publishers to get his stuff published,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: he deserves it. He's that good.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: All right, well, I'll check those out. This was kind
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: of fun.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: I liked it.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: I hope everyone else did.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I liked it too, Chuck. I hope I didn't
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: hog too many recommendations.
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: No, this is great. I thought it was well-balanced and
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: went down smooth, like a fine scotch.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Well, let us know if you took this like a
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: fine scotch or if you're just like, guys, don't ever
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: do this again. We want to hear all of it.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: And I think short stuff is out. Happy Halloween.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: Happy Halloween. Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
• 14:59
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• 15:04
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