Latest / Weeknight Mysteries Podcast / Ep. 119 | Color Out of Space - Lovecraft & Week of Weird - Strange New

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Ep. 119 | Color Out of Space - Lovecraft & Week of Weird - Strange New · 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
11:17
Speaker 1: of oh look at us how random we are. We've
11:21
Speaker 1: got alpacas. I don't know. It's good to have a
11:25
Speaker 1: bit of light relief but I don't know if in
11:28
Speaker 1: this film sometimes it felt a bit out of place.
11:31
Speaker 1: So yeah I was going to say about the characters
11:34
Speaker 1: in the film. I didn't like him too much because
11:37
Speaker 1: he all felt a bit typical. You can tell with
11:40
Speaker 1: this movie they're trying to do something very different with
11:42
Speaker 1: a horror movie and a lot of the characters felt
11:45
Speaker 1: very tropey. If you know what I mean, they felt
11:48
Speaker 1: very like you'd seen him in every other horror movie.
11:52
Speaker 1: And I kind of wish they'd done something slightly different
11:55
Speaker 1: with the characters as well as the movie itself. The
11:58
Speaker 1: final act of the movie, it all feels a bit muddled.
12:02
Speaker 1: The problem is the beginning of the film builds up
12:04
Speaker 1: so well this horror. And it all sort of ends
12:08
Speaker 1: in a crescendo and it all feels a bit sort
12:10
Speaker 1: of they're just throwing a load of things at your
12:12
Speaker 1: load of elements. And whereas I think if they went
12:15
Speaker 1: a bit more slow, a bit more slow-paced and subtle
12:18
Speaker 1: with the horrors, it would be more effective. For example,
12:23
Speaker 1: I think there's some genuinely creepy moments, for example when
12:26
Speaker 1: there's something that happens to the mother and the younger son.
12:30
Speaker 1: When it first reveals what happens to them, it's pretty horrific.
12:34
Speaker 1: You feel like, oh my god, that's horrible. And the
12:38
Speaker 1: reactions of the family are really good and you kind
12:41
Speaker 1: of feel that horror along with them. And then they
12:44
Speaker 1: just kind of, they don't know much else with it.
12:47
Speaker 1: They don't explore the horror of that situation enough. And
12:52
Speaker 1: I think they could have explored this idea a little
12:54
Speaker 1: bit more what they do with the mother and the
12:56
Speaker 1: younger son is pretty horrific. And I think they could
12:59
Speaker 1: have sort of explored the family's reaction to that a
13:02
Speaker 1: little bit more than they do. like you'll spoil a
13:05
Speaker 1: little bit further with it. And there's another really good
13:08
Speaker 1: moment where they go back to Tommy Jong's house and
13:11
Speaker 1: there's just this sound from outside. Just the sound design
13:15
Speaker 1: at this moment in the film is really good. It
13:18
Speaker 1: has a really sinister effect, I think. It shows real
13:22
Speaker 1: moments of horror, but it's kind of interspersed at this
13:25
Speaker 1: point with a lot of very noisy scenes, a lot
13:28
Speaker 1: of very bright flashing colors that are slightly disorientated. I
13:32
Speaker 1: think it kind of takes away from the horror in
13:34
Speaker 1: certain scenes. It gets a bit kind of a bit
13:38
Speaker 1: over the top. I'm not being too down on the movie,
13:41
Speaker 1: I just think towards the end it could have been
13:43
Speaker 1: torn down a little bit. I understand what they're doing
13:46
Speaker 1: with the colors, but it gets so bright and psychedelic
13:49
Speaker 1: that it actually becomes quite difficult to watch. It's like
13:53
Speaker 1: I was getting a headache at some point. I remember
13:57
Speaker 1: there was a scene where there was like this a
13:58
Speaker 1: blue flashing light from a police car and it was
14:01
Speaker 1: interspersed with this bright magenta color and it was flashing
14:04
Speaker 1: across people's faces. And it was just like I was
14:07
Speaker 1: getting a headache from watching it, it was so disorientating
14:10
Speaker 1: and you know it's interesting visually but it's not horrific,
14:13
Speaker 1: it's not a scary scene. It kind of like that
14:16
Speaker 1: they tried to do something slightly different with what the
14:19
Speaker 1: color does to people and what it does to the animals.
14:22
Speaker 1: But I think if they were going to go with
14:24
Speaker 1: CG effects, I think if they stuck with what it
14:27
Speaker 1: says in the book, it would have been more interesting.
14:30
Speaker 1: Like in the book, everything sort of turns grey and
14:33
Speaker 1: starts to like disintegrate as if it's sort of turned
14:35
Speaker 1: into ash. And I think they could have done that
14:38
Speaker 1: quite well with computer generated effects. But I think what
14:42
Speaker 1: they went with it all looked a bit cartoony, a
14:45
Speaker 1: bit slightly silly, a lot of the CG kind of
14:48
Speaker 1: took me out of the atmosphere of the movie at
14:50
Speaker 1: that point. But the more things that they changed from
14:53
Speaker 1: the original story that I had to liked, I think
14:56
Speaker 1: in the Lovecraft's original short story. In the final scene,
15:00
Speaker 1: he introduced like a whole bunch of characters that haven't
15:03
Speaker 1: been introduced in the rest of the story. Like the
15:06
Speaker 1: big climax of the story involves a bunch of people
15:09
Speaker 1: that you don't, apart from the narrator, you don't really
15:11
Speaker 1: know any of the other characters. I think they do
15:15
Speaker 1: a better job. It sort of combines two different parts
15:19
Speaker 1: of the original story to make the end of the movie,
15:21
Speaker 1: which they do that I think in a better way.
15:24
Speaker 1: All in all, I enjoyed the movie, I don't want
15:27
Speaker 1: to sound like I'm being down on it. I'm trying
15:30
Speaker 1: to list the things that I didn't like, but I
15:32
Speaker 1: really like that there's a modern horror movie that they've
15:34
Speaker 1: tried to do something different with. I see so many
15:38
Speaker 1: trailers for horror movies coming out and it just looks
15:41
Speaker 1: like every other horror movie I've seen for the last
15:43
Speaker 1: 10 years or so. You can tell immediately, like beat
15:47
Speaker 1: for beat, everything that's going to happen in that movie,
15:50
Speaker 1: just from watching a trailer. And it's just refreshing to
15:54
Speaker 1: see them finally do something a bit different. The visuals
15:58
Speaker 1: and everything with the movie, it's completely unique. The only
16:02
Speaker 1: thing I can compare it to really is Annihilation. And
16:06
Speaker 1: I think Annihilation is quite inspired by the color out
16:08
Speaker 1: of space. I think maybe Annihilation doesn't even better job
16:13
Speaker 1: of being a Lovecraftian than The Color Out of Space does.
16:17
Speaker 1: Annihilation kind of, to me, is like a mashup of
16:20
Speaker 1: Lovecraft and J.D. Ballad's, The Crystal World. It's just kind
16:25
Speaker 1: of like those two books combined almost. I felt like
16:29
Speaker 1: some points this film was trying to emulate Annihilation, but
16:32
Speaker 1: not quite doing a good enough job of it. But
16:35
Speaker 1: as I say, all in all, great different horror movie.
16:39
Speaker 1: And interesting enough to elevate it above just the slew
16:42
Speaker 1: of rubbish that comes out these days. I really got
16:46
Speaker 1: to give the filmmakers kudos for trying something different and
16:49
Speaker 1: being brave enough in it. Like I said, the first
16:52
Speaker 1: two thirds of the movie I loved, the last third
16:55
Speaker 1: of the movie I didn't like as much, I didn't
16:57
Speaker 1: hate it. It wasn't boring. It was just kind of
17:02
Speaker 1: lost its pacing a little bit. It kind of went
17:05
Speaker 1: a bit too much over the top for me. I
17:08
Speaker 1: say go watch it. It's interesting at least. Is it
17:12
Speaker 1: the best Lovecraft adaptation? I don't know. I haven't seen
17:18
Speaker 1: them all. Has it captured the feeling of a Lovecraft movie? Possibly, yes.
17:25
Speaker 1: It's got the sort of weird unexplained even towards the
17:28
Speaker 1: end of it. You don't quite know what the horror is.
17:32
Speaker 1: It leaves enough questions in your mind. This is what
17:36
Speaker 1: I like about Lovecraft is. you'll describe things in detail.
17:41
Speaker 1: But you'll leave enough out for your mind to sort
17:43
Speaker 1: of turn it over. I'll give you an example. The
17:47
Speaker 1: mountains of madness are re-raising it. And the way they
17:51
Speaker 1: describe the city in the book, they give such a
17:54
Speaker 1: detailed account of the structures of the buildings. When they
17:57
Speaker 1: enter this forgotten city, they give such a detailed account
18:01
Speaker 1: of all the structures of the buildings, how they're built,
18:04
Speaker 1: what material they made, how they're made, how they're made,
18:07
Speaker 1: how they're made, how they're all the rock. You could
18:11
Speaker 1: probably just draw a picture and accurate map of the
18:13
Speaker 1: city just from the description. But there's enough in the
18:17
Speaker 1: descriptions to know that there's something more natural about it.
18:20
Speaker 1: That the narrator can't describe. And although you build up
18:24
Speaker 1: in your mind this accurate image of the city, it
18:27
Speaker 1: leaves something out because the narrator can't quite tell you
18:30
Speaker 1: what it is. It's just something more natural and evil
18:33
Speaker 1: about it. It kind of causes you to turn this
18:36
Speaker 1: image of the city around any head and ponder on it.
18:40
Speaker 1: And that's kind of, I think, where the horror is,
18:43
Speaker 1: it's indescribable. And I think this movie does a good
18:47
Speaker 1: job of conveying that sort of, or knowable horror. It
18:51
Speaker 1: does a good job of capturing that essence of the
18:53
Speaker 1: weird cosmic horror that you can't quite place in your mind.
18:58
Speaker 1: It doesn't quite make sense to a human brain. And
19:01
Speaker 1: I think people who read Lovecraft will all have their
19:04
Speaker 1: own opinion on what makes a Lovecraftian horror. But for me,
19:08
Speaker 1: it does a fairly good job. And I would recommend it.
19:12
Speaker 1: And I've heard them making like two more in the
19:15
Speaker 1: same series. So I'll be excited to see them. I'll
19:19
Speaker 1: definitely be watching them when they come out. Now, if
19:23
Speaker 1: you've seen it, let me know what you think as well.
19:27
Speaker 1: I'll be interested to know if other people have enjoyed
19:29
Speaker 1: it or not. Oh. and I wanted to say as
19:32
Speaker 1: well as something else, you'll notice more and more as
19:35
Speaker 1: you rewatch it. There seems to be a lot of
19:38
Speaker 1: symbolism and images in there, which you might not spot
19:41
Speaker 1: on the first time around or you might not make
19:43
Speaker 1: the connections. For example, at the beginning of the film
19:47
Speaker 1: when Lavigneur is doing that weird ritual, you see these
19:50
Speaker 1: dull legs hung up in the tree in a swastika pattern.
19:53
Speaker 1: And then later on, which I didn't realize, I didn't
19:56
Speaker 1: spot at first as they're going towards Tommy Chong's house.
20:00
Speaker 1: You see a dull hung up in the tree there.
20:03
Speaker 1: And I didn't make the connection at first. But then
20:07
Speaker 1: I think, Well, I wonder if there's some connection between
20:10
Speaker 1: Tommy Chong's, he's called Ezra, between Ezra and Lavinere that
20:14
Speaker 1: isn't quite explained in the movie, but maybe rewatching it,
20:17
Speaker 1: you'll see more links between these different characters. It seems
20:21
Speaker 1: like the kind of movie where there's going to be
20:23
Speaker 1: a lot of these like little weird symbols and easter
20:25
Speaker 1: eggs and things to spot. And I think rewatching it,
20:29
Speaker 1: you'll get more out of it. So yeah, that was
20:33
Speaker 1: another thing I think might be important. is probably a
20:36
Speaker 1: movie that requires a few viewings to appreciate fully. Hello everybody,
20:41
Speaker 1: and welcome to a new series, Time Calling, A Week
20:44
Speaker 1: of Weird. Each week I'll be looking back at the
20:47
Speaker 1: weirdest and creepiest news stories from various sources around the world.
20:52
Speaker 1: I'd like your help with this. So let's look at
20:55
Speaker 1: the first one. This is from the Daily Star, a
20:59
Speaker 1: UK paper. and they have a video to share where
21:01
Speaker 1: two teenagers are walking down a stairwell and one of
21:04
Speaker 1: them gets attacked by a ghost. Let's have a look.
21:08
Speaker 1: Very strange. They've got some closer pictures of the shadow being.
21:14
Speaker 1: It says that CCTV appears to show the creepy shadow
21:17
Speaker 1: raised some sort of weapon while it continues to pummel
21:20
Speaker 1: the poor kid. At the bottom of the article, they've
21:23
Speaker 1: added some comments from people who've watched the recordings. Highly
21:27
Speaker 1: insightful comments was good enough to publish. That was creepy.
21:33
Speaker 1: Dude got attacked by a ghost. Thank you for that
21:36
Speaker 1: daily star. How insightful. Hmm, this one's strange. So the
21:43
Speaker 1: Sunday Express published a story. It was titled, I proved
21:48
Speaker 1: human-alien hybrids exists, a scientist who found them living on Earth.
21:53
Speaker 1: And luckily I recorded this screen capture footage earlier today.
21:58
Speaker 1: I've just gone to this site to read it again
22:00
Speaker 1: while recording the audio part, and I've found that they've
22:03
Speaker 1: actually removed the article. What's going on? Maybe they knew
22:08
Speaker 1: too much, and the government have made them shut it down.
22:12
Speaker 1: But anyway, before the article was deleted, here's what it said.
22:16
Speaker 1: A green energy expert who helped shape UK renewable power
22:20
Speaker 1: policies says he has convinced aliens have been secretly implanting
22:23
Speaker 1: extraterrestrial DNA into pregnant humans. Let's have a look at
22:28
Speaker 1: this proof here. Total Story is about a man named
22:31
Speaker 1: Miguel Madonca, I don't know if I'm pronouncing that correctly,
22:35
Speaker 1: but he's recently published a book in which he interviews
22:37
Speaker 1: eight people who claim to be alien-human hybrids. He says
22:42
Speaker 1: that they've cured him of MS, and that they're here
22:44
Speaker 1: to help us evolve into higher beings. The book was
22:48
Speaker 1: co-authored by a woman named Barbara Lam. If ever an
22:52
Speaker 1: alien-human hybrid woke the earth, this is probably what it
22:55
Speaker 1: would look like. We've put a poll halfway through the article,
22:59
Speaker 1: it asks us if we think the authors should have
23:01
Speaker 1: done a bit more research instead of just interviewing the people,
23:04
Speaker 1: like light detector tests or checking their DNA. Obviously, I'm
23:09
Speaker 1: completely convinced, but it seems like I'm in the minority,
23:13
Speaker 1: with over 75% of people, thinking that it's mumbo jumbo.
23:18
Speaker 1: But I suppose you can just pause the recording if
23:20
Speaker 1: you want to read it. Come to the Daily Post now,
23:24
Speaker 1: and thanks to Jake for sending me this article. It's
23:27
Speaker 1: a particularly interesting to me, because this is where I
23:30
Speaker 1: grew up as a child, the North Wales ex-whales. Our
23:34
Speaker 1: big cats on the prowl in Regions countryside, and it
23:37
Speaker 1: says that since 2011, there has been 10 official reports
23:41
Speaker 1: made to North Wales police of sightings of large feline
23:44
Speaker 1: type creatures. There's a picture of a big cat, in
23:48
Speaker 1: case you didn't know what a big cat looked like.
23:51
Speaker 1: It says that these creatures have been set to resemble panthers,
23:55
Speaker 1: pumes or lynx. The main theory is that when the
23:58
Speaker 1: Dangerous Wild Animals Act of 1976 was introduced, it made
24:03
Speaker 1: it illegal to keep on tame pets, so people just
24:06
Speaker 1: released them into the wild, or maybe they escaped from
24:08
Speaker 1: a zoo. So North Wales has been named a big
24:12
Speaker 1: cat hotspot now, after all these sightings. There's a timeline here.
24:18
Speaker 1: In a few cases, the cats have even killed livestock.
24:22
Speaker 1: The most recent sighting was the 8th of April this year,
24:25
Speaker 1: in Flamborys, It says a big cat, such as a tiger, lion,
24:30
Speaker 1: or puma, was roaming near the snow nudie of a ledges,
24:33
Speaker 1: police were informed. Under the Daily Mail now, and the
24:37
Speaker 1: story is that scientists are going to release herpes into
24:40
Speaker 1: a river that's going to kill thousands of carp, there's
24:43
Speaker 1: a threatening native fish in the River Murray in South Australia.
24:47
Speaker 1: Apparently this is some kind of special fish herpes that
24:50
Speaker 1: only affects the carp, it won't affect the other wildlife
24:53
Speaker 1: or humans. Apparently, the fish are a European carp that
24:57
Speaker 1: have somehow made it into the river, and are destroying
25:00
Speaker 1: the habitats for the native fish. I'm actually surprised that
25:04
Speaker 1: the Daily Mail hasn't described it as an immigrant invasion.
25:08
Speaker 1: Hopefully this disease doesn't mutate and become some kind of
25:11
Speaker 1: killer herpes that infect humans and turns them into fish people,
25:15
Speaker 1: chances are slim, but it could happen. On to the
25:19
Speaker 1: Daily Mirror now, and the story is, mystery over 140-foot,
25:22
Speaker 1: glowing UFO, seen in the ocean off the coast of Antarctica.
25:28
Speaker 1: This is like Inception or something, so there's something strange
25:31
Speaker 1: on Google Earth at this location. It looks like a
25:34
Speaker 1: giant squid of some sort, but at 140 feet across
25:38
Speaker 1: that seems unlikely. Some people have said it's a fishing
25:42
Speaker 1: boat or underwater mountain, and apparently one man called Chadwick
25:45
Speaker 1: the Great has said that that area of Google Earth
25:48
Speaker 1: has always had something strange on it, and said it's
25:50
Speaker 1: just the top of an underwater mountain. Another story from
25:54
Speaker 1: the Daily Mirror, terrified dad claims alien photo bombed to
25:58
Speaker 1: him in chilling holiday picture. So this man Andy Bagnall
26:02
Speaker 1: went on a National Express coach trip, for some reason
26:05
Speaker 1: he took a picture of himself studying front of the coach,
26:08
Speaker 1: I'm not sure why, but when he looked at the
26:10
Speaker 1: photos he realized there was a spooky alien looking out
26:13
Speaker 1: at him from just behind the driver's seat. Apparently he
26:16
Speaker 1: was so terrified that he's refused to travel by coach
26:19
Speaker 1: ever since. He says there wasn't anybody on the coach
26:23
Speaker 1: when the photo was taken, so he has no idea
26:26
Speaker 1: what could have caused it. There's another photograph as he took,
26:30
Speaker 1: and the alien can be seen on this one too.
26:33
Speaker 1: It seems a bit strange to me that as an
26:35
Speaker 1: alien that has the technology to transport itself millions of
26:38
Speaker 1: light years across space, would be traveling around England in
26:42
Speaker 1: a National Express coach, but that definitely is an alien,
26:45
Speaker 1: and there's no other explanation for it. This story is
26:49
Speaker 1: from The Sun, and the hilarious headline reads, It's a mist,
26:53
Speaker 1: are we? Scientists baffled and data are stumped by strange
26:57
Speaker 1: sea creature on Essex Beach, so apparently in South End Essex,
27:02
Speaker 1: quite close to this adventure of Island Park, somebody found
27:05
Speaker 1: a mysterious creature washed up on the beach, and nobody
27:08
Speaker 1: can identify it. A man named Charlie Cole noticed a
27:12
Speaker 1: strange creature as he walked along the sands, he decided
27:15
Speaker 1: to flip it over to see what it was. and
27:17
Speaker 1: here he is eating a nice green, hopefully he washed
27:20
Speaker 1: his hands, apparently the sun have tried to get the
27:23
Speaker 1: creature identified by experts. Yeah, I believe them, so scientists
27:28
Speaker 1: at the Marine Biology Association admitted they couldn't be sure,
27:31
Speaker 1: but have a theory that the mystery sea beast would
27:34
Speaker 1: be a large array with its wings cut off. Another
27:37
Speaker 1: story from the sun, and again they've got a hilarious headline,
27:41
Speaker 1: did somebody say exorcise, ghost is caught on camera doing
27:44
Speaker 1: park workouts, they have a video of an outdoor gym
27:47
Speaker 1: in northern Chile, it looks like a ghost is working
27:50
Speaker 1: out on one of the exorcised machines. Not content with
27:54
Speaker 1: using the exorcise joke in the headline, they've actually put
27:57
Speaker 1: it in the middle of the article as well, they
27:59
Speaker 1: say perhaps the ghost misunderstood and somebody was talking about
28:03
Speaker 1: being exorcised, or perhaps it takes great pride in working
28:06
Speaker 1: on its invisible muscles. Strangely, the Sun haven't assembled a
28:11
Speaker 1: team of experts that's trying to explain this video, so
28:14
Speaker 1: we'll just have to assume that there's no explanation for it,
28:17
Speaker 1: it really is a ghost. This is the last news story,
28:21
Speaker 1: it's from the Asian correspondent, Asia's leading independent news, the
28:25
Speaker 1: story comes from Malaysia, it says, netizens are stonished by
28:29
Speaker 1: birth of human-faced goat, and there's some pictures of it,
28:32
Speaker 1: so apparently a goat has given birth to something with
28:34
Speaker 1: a human face, unfortunately the mutant died soon after being born.
28:39
Speaker 1: The creature was born on a farm belonging to oil
28:42
Speaker 1: palm settler, Ebrahim Basar, who was discovered by his business partner,
28:46
Speaker 1: Jamaluddin Abdul Samad, he says, when I went to check
28:50
Speaker 1: I was quite shocked but fascinated too, as its face nose,
28:54
Speaker 1: short legs and even the condition of its soft body
28:56
Speaker 1: seemed like a human baby, but the light brown fur
28:59
Speaker 1: covering its whole body resembles that of a goat. So
29:03
Speaker 1: since the picture was posted online, the internet has obviously
29:07
Speaker 1: come to the conclusion that it was a human-goat hybrid,
29:09
Speaker 1: the result of some kind of beastie outie sex act,
29:12
Speaker 1: some of the else has suggested that Chebako was the father.
29:16
Speaker 1: In a follow-up story on the same news site, it
29:19
Speaker 1: seems like the authorities really are investigating this case to
29:22
Speaker 1: see if the mother goat had been raped by a human.
29:25
Speaker 1: Authorities are not discounting the possibility that a human had
29:28
Speaker 1: violated its mother, which may have led it to become
29:31
Speaker 1: a hybrid animal. Ismail Mohamed, a committee chairman for the
29:35
Speaker 1: Joho State Agriculture and Agro-Based Industry Committee, said that it
29:39
Speaker 1: would take at least a fortnight to conduct investigations into
29:42
Speaker 1: the carcass of the kid which looked like a human infant.
29:46
Speaker 1: He says we will have to wait for the results
29:48
Speaker 1: and findings to be finalized, and that takes somewhere between
29:51
Speaker 1: two weeks and a month. So if any more information
29:55
Speaker 1: comes out on this story, we'll keep you informed. So
29:58
Speaker 1: that's the end of the news stories for this week.
30:02
Speaker 1: Please let me know if you enjoyed this case. Once
30:05
Speaker 1: again if you see any articles that you think would
30:07
Speaker 1: be good for this show, leave a comment or send
30:10
Speaker 1: me a message. If you check the description to the recording,
30:14
Speaker 1: you'll see links to our Facebook and Twitter accounts so
30:16
Speaker 1: you can send a message on there if you want to.
30:19
Speaker 1: Thank you very much for watching. Till next time, goodbye.