Latest / Ridiculous History / The Beast of Gévaudan, Part 1: Murders In France

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The Beast of Gévaudan, Part 1: Murders In France · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Yes
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Speaker 1: it finally happened. It is October one as we record this,
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Speaker 1: which in my mind means it's already Halloween. Hi and Ben,
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Speaker 1: Halloween is every day, I think for us, especially on
0:43
Speaker 1: stuff they don't want you to know, the other show
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Speaker 1: that we hang out on. But yeah, I don't know
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Speaker 1: about you, but there's so many things about Halloween that
0:50
Speaker 1: just do it for me. The holiday itself, obviously, I
0:52
Speaker 1: think we are all fans of spooky stuff, but just
0:54
Speaker 1: the weather change, you know, going from being in Georgia,
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Speaker 1: going from brutally hot and oppressive to this kind of
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Speaker 1: like very brief, beautiful grace period of you know, breezy
1:05
Speaker 1: fall weather before it just gets obnoxiously cold. So yeah,
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Speaker 1: really big fan and big fan of the types of
1:10
Speaker 1: episodes that we get to cover, uh for for this
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Speaker 1: particular season. Yeah, yeah, agreed. Uh Yeah, I love this
1:18
Speaker 1: Ray Bradberry esque autumnal weather. I love the idea that
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Speaker 1: something spooky this way comes. Uh. We have decided to
1:27
Speaker 1: dive into some spooky episodes this month. Maybe not a
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Speaker 1: spooky episodes, but we're gonna do our best. We're gonna
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Speaker 1: have some fun with some monsters with some creepy stuff,
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Speaker 1: and if there's anything that comes up that might not
1:40
Speaker 1: be appropriate for the youngest people in the audience, will
1:44
Speaker 1: give you a heads up at the top of the show.
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Speaker 1: With that being said, I think this is an all
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Speaker 1: ages one. I do want to say to your comment
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Speaker 1: about it always being Halloween, especially on stuff they don't
1:55
Speaker 1: want you to know. I recently wrote a very pretentious
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Speaker 1: essay called always Halloween in America. I would love I
2:03
Speaker 1: would love to send to you guys. It's my uninformed
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Speaker 1: pop culture, socio political critique. But no, where would we be? Uh?
2:14
Speaker 1: You know you and I are two great monsters, but
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Speaker 1: where would we be as a show without our favorite
2:19
Speaker 1: monster on the Ones and two? Super producer Casey Pegram Casey,
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Speaker 1: what are your thoughts on on Halloween? Pretty much everything
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Speaker 1: that's already been said, got it? Uh? I primarily love
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Speaker 1: the weather. I'm not like a huge Halloween guy. There
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Speaker 1: are years where I don't go out and and really
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Speaker 1: get in costume or do anything. But I never wear
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Speaker 1: a costume. For the record, that's just not the part
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Speaker 1: of it that I personally. I like seeing other people
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Speaker 1: wear awesome costumes and my daughter is a huge costume person.
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Speaker 1: Halloween is going to be a little sad for her
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Speaker 1: this year and for a lot of kids. Right, and
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Speaker 1: I think trick or treating is canceled, so you can
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Speaker 1: trick or treat in podcast form with us. There we go,
2:56
Speaker 1: There we go. Uh, email our complaints apart and Jonathan
3:00
Speaker 1: Strickland at iHeart radio dot com for your free candy.
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Speaker 1: Don't be nice about it demanded. He'll deliver it to
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Speaker 1: you directly. And he's creepy white van. Yes, Uh, don't
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Speaker 1: get in the van. We cannot stress that enough. Do
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Speaker 1: not get in the van. Learn from our mistakes. Halloween
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Speaker 1: is gonna be tough for a lot of kids, a
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Speaker 1: lot of people like us who love the holiday. It's
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Speaker 1: also gonna be tough for a lot of parents. But
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Speaker 1: one nice thing we can say about Halloween is, at
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Speaker 1: least this year, Uh, it looks like children have a
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Speaker 1: very good chance of not being chased by a real
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Speaker 1: life monster. It's a perfect segue. Uh, not the case
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Speaker 1: for folks in the Oh gosh, we're gonna have a
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Speaker 1: hell of a time today running French pronunciations by super
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Speaker 1: producer Casey Pegram. But I'm gonna give this one a
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Speaker 1: goo uh in the Gold region. Oh, I was close
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Speaker 1: Jef Casey on the case. It's funny because when we
4:07
Speaker 1: were gearing up to record, I would have had to
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Speaker 1: try to get in front of that case you had
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Speaker 1: asked him, it's gonna come up because it is the
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Speaker 1: The titular beast in question is the Beast of Javad. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: okay cool. Yeah, And and that is a region in
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Speaker 1: the south of France, and what today is is called Okay,
4:30
Speaker 1: I gotta. You may be tangentially familiar with this story. Uh,
4:37
Speaker 1: dear listeners if you remember the absolutely bonkers French like
4:42
Speaker 1: Kung Fu period Peace, The Brotherhood of the Wolf, Love,
4:48
Speaker 1: I Adore It. It's got everything you want. That was
4:51
Speaker 1: also right on the heels of like Crouching Tiger and
4:54
Speaker 1: Whyfou Praise? That was so big, And they took this
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Speaker 1: and applied it to a peer a drama thriller about
5:03
Speaker 1: this monster that was just you know, basically eating its
5:07
Speaker 1: way across the French countryside. In this in this part
5:09
Speaker 1: of France, it's it's a really cool movie. It's very strange.
5:15
Speaker 1: There's a character that just inexplicably has this like segmented
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Speaker 1: razor whip that looks like it's made out of like
5:23
Speaker 1: vertebrae or something, and it stretches out like a superhero
5:27
Speaker 1: weapon of some kind. It's not explained with the physics
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Speaker 1: behind this thing at all. It's like the sword that
5:33
Speaker 1: the character Ivy and Soul Caliber has. Sometimes it's a sword,
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Speaker 1: sometimes it's a segmented chain whip. Yeah. I love Brother
5:41
Speaker 1: the Wolf. It spends most of without spoiling it, it's
5:45
Speaker 1: a it's a great film. It spends most of his
5:48
Speaker 1: time figuring out what it wants to be unsuccessfully. Uh,
5:52
Speaker 1: maybe it's best described as like a period horror investigation
5:57
Speaker 1: fantasy piece. I don't know. It's got some leepy hollow
6:00
Speaker 1: in it with better fight scenes. Little Sherlock Holmes nous
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Speaker 1: to to. Vincent Cassel is in it, and he's fabulous
6:08
Speaker 1: and everything he's in You've seen him in American films,
6:10
Speaker 1: I'm sure as well. But yeah, I was really fascinated
6:12
Speaker 1: by that, and it got me looking more into the story,
6:15
Speaker 1: even back in two thousand one. God, we're old when
6:18
Speaker 1: that came out. But it's very much based on a
6:22
Speaker 1: real story. Yeah, it very much is. I also want
6:25
Speaker 1: to give a shout out to the iconic Monica Bellucci,
6:28
Speaker 1: who is in that film us respect respect. So this
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Speaker 1: is very loosely inspired by a very real and tragic
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Speaker 1: event that remains mysterious in the modern day. As you said, Nol,
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Speaker 1: this story takes place in Veldon. It is uh part
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Speaker 1: of southern France that during this time had its own
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Speaker 1: sketchy reputation. It was thought of as remote, you know,
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Speaker 1: a world away from Paris. Uh. People thought it was
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Speaker 1: kind of on the edge of the wilderness what we
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Speaker 1: would maybe think of as like hay seeds or you know,
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Speaker 1: like uh country folk that that are looked down upon
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Speaker 1: by the aristocracy or people that live in the big city. Yeah,
7:13
Speaker 1: kind of a frontier vibe. You know, if you've ever
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Speaker 1: been to the hinter lens of Alaska or any wild place. Uh,
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Speaker 1: there was very much this perceived conflict between human civilization
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Speaker 1: and the natural world. People believed in monsters, they believed
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Speaker 1: in magic, picture Grimm Brothers, fairy tale kind of vibe.
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Speaker 1: That's that's what we've got. Uh, Yeah, that's what Smithsonian
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Speaker 1: Mad kind of described it as in this great article
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Speaker 1: that we got some really cool sources from and and
7:43
Speaker 1: and pulled some research from UM. One of the sources
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Speaker 1: that's credited in the article is a book called Monsters
7:49
Speaker 1: of the gobal Don the Making of a Beast, and
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Speaker 1: the writer behind that, uh, that book, J M. Smith,
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Speaker 1: a historian UM, described this region as such. It's fascinating,
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Speaker 1: it's powerful, it's scary, it's sublime. It was the perfect
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Speaker 1: place for a grim like fairy tale starring a possibly
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Speaker 1: supernatural creature. But for villagers under attack, reality was more
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Speaker 1: brutal than any book. And that's because France sucked in
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Speaker 1: this period. It's uh, yeah, it was not a fun
8:17
Speaker 1: place to live unless you were literally ensconced in your
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Speaker 1: ivory tower, which most people were not. And and and still,
8:24
Speaker 1: you know, the French Revolution was unbeknownst to them coming
8:29
Speaker 1: along the way. People, of course, can't predict the future,
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Speaker 1: so folks in France were less worried about a revolution
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Speaker 1: they didn't see on the horizon and more worried about
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Speaker 1: how to recover from the Seven Years War, which it
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Speaker 1: was only like had only ended a year prior. Uh.
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Speaker 1: France had suffered so many defeats from the Prussians, from
8:51
Speaker 1: the British as well the bulk of the overseas Empire
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Speaker 1: holdings were lost, the economy was in the loop, and
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Speaker 1: the beast comes into this socio political context. The beast
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Speaker 1: itself is a real creature. Uh. The first victim was
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Speaker 1: fourteen year old girl watching sheep. Her name was Jane Bolt,
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Speaker 1: and her death was you know, just the first documented one,
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Speaker 1: but there were more to come in throughout seventeen sixty
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Speaker 1: four victims of this creature were found throughout the area
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Speaker 1: with their throats torn out, their heads gnawed off. This
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Speaker 1: is not hyperbolee. This is what happened. National Geographic has
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Speaker 1: a great article on this as well. That's right. And
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Speaker 1: I would say that this, uh, this shepherd girl that
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Speaker 1: that that has mentioned here is probably the inspiration for
9:48
Speaker 1: the cold open scene of Brotherhood of the Wolf, and
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Speaker 1: that's sort of what kicks off the mystery as they find,
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Speaker 1: you know, serial killer style, the remnants of this this
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Speaker 1: young woman, and that's what kicks off the investigation, and
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Speaker 1: that gets the heart of the of the story and
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Speaker 1: what propels the plot forward. There's a reason that this
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Speaker 1: is a story we're talking about today. Look, communication ad
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Speaker 1: you know, was much less efficient than it is in
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Speaker 1: the modern day, and the news from the region was
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Speaker 1: tightly controlled and censored by the king, and you forget
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Speaker 1: the region. Throughout France, newspapers had to be very careful
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Speaker 1: what they reported on because if they made Louis mad uh,
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Speaker 1: it could be as dangerous to them as getting their
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Speaker 1: throats s toorn out by a wolf in the woods,
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Speaker 1: if indeed a wolf it was, which we'll get to.
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Speaker 1: Because they couldn't report on a lot of political events
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Speaker 1: or current affairs of the state, newspapers needed to turn
10:48
Speaker 1: to other things, other stories for content, and so they
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Speaker 1: turned to the stories of these mysterious attacks in Chevaudon.
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Speaker 1: A guy named France suab Morinus, who was the creator
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Speaker 1: and editor of the Corrire de Avonnon, used a type
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Speaker 1: of reporting that they called faith divers, which is stories
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Speaker 1: of well they're kind of like human interest stories, but
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Speaker 1: they're human interest stories of small town crime, kind of like, um,
11:22
Speaker 1: if you guys remember here in Atlanta, for a long time,
11:25
Speaker 1: we had a magazine called Creative Loofing, and every week
11:28
Speaker 1: that it came out, it would publish a column called
11:31
Speaker 1: The Blotterer, which is do you guys remember the Blotterer? Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I mean it's it's a salacious tabloid asque kind of
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Speaker 1: yellow journalism really is what it is an early example
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Speaker 1: of that what we would now consider true crime and
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Speaker 1: and what makes for a good true crime story. If
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Speaker 1: it bleeds, it leads, the more salacious, the better, which
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Speaker 1: this absolutely was. I mean it did not only did
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Speaker 1: it bleed, it the throat slashed and disemboweled and you know,
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Speaker 1: ripped off limbs. That did all the things to make
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Speaker 1: for a perfect Faith de Vere's type of story. And
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Speaker 1: people ate it up just like they do today. Right
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Speaker 1: this guy France Swab it's it's his reporting especially that
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Speaker 1: lifted the story of the beast from some kind of
12:18
Speaker 1: isolated backwater tragedy to uh an issue of national concern.
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Speaker 1: So let's look at the reporting. So the first recorded
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Speaker 1: fatal attack occurred on June thirtieth, seventeen sixty four. We
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Speaker 1: mentioned this fourteen year old girl, the shepherd Jean Ballet,
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Speaker 1: was tending a flock of sheep and she was discovered,
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Speaker 1: you know, attacked. But our guy we mentioned earlier, J M. Smith,
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Speaker 1: in his book, he notes that she may not have
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Speaker 1: been the first victim, just the first victim reported at
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Speaker 1: the time, because two months before this fourteen year old dies,
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Speaker 1: there's another young woman who was tending cattle and she
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Speaker 1: was attacked by something, but she escaped because her cattle
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Speaker 1: defended her. And get this description. She said it was
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Speaker 1: like a wolf, yet not a wolf. Like a wolf, yes,
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Speaker 1: not a wolf. It's very eerie. It sounds like some
13:15
Speaker 1: love crafty and kind of writing, you know, or like
13:18
Speaker 1: something from Poe. Maybe I want to point out a
13:21
Speaker 1: pug is also like a wolf, but not a wolf.
13:23
Speaker 1: A pug. Yeah, pug is like a wolf. It's the same.
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Speaker 1: It would have been a lot cuter if these murders
13:31
Speaker 1: had been, uh, you know, done by pugs. You never
13:35
Speaker 1: see the pug coming. It's so cute. Then you reached
13:38
Speaker 1: down and then it just devours you. And that's that's
13:40
Speaker 1: terrifying in and of itself. But yeah, I mean this,
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Speaker 1: this beast was absolutely ravaging, uh this this town or
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Speaker 1: this this part of France, attacking partially eating women and children,
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Speaker 1: according to the report, But it didn't necessarily seem to
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Speaker 1: have a preference of gender. Uh. There were some men
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Speaker 1: that were attacked as well, but they were typically by themselves.
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Speaker 1: Um So I thought that maybe there was some speculation
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Speaker 1: that this was like some sort of jack the ripper situation.
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Speaker 1: I think I might have made that up. There was
14:11
Speaker 1: have our speculation that it was maybe more than one
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Speaker 1: creature that was I think these were pretty clearly the
14:16
Speaker 1: types of injuries that would only be possibly inflicted by, like,
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Speaker 1: you know, a wild animal. Yeah, yeah, A person doing
14:23
Speaker 1: this at the time would have to do some very
14:27
Speaker 1: clever trickery you know what I mean to to replicate
14:31
Speaker 1: the mauling that was evident on the corpses. Yeah, you're
14:36
Speaker 1: right now. So these attacks continue through summer, they continue
14:40
Speaker 1: into autumn, like this beautiful weather we're having now, and
14:45
Speaker 1: there were so many reports of the creature that everyone
14:49
Speaker 1: in France was familiar with it in some way. You
14:51
Speaker 1: didn't It got to the point where you didn't have
14:53
Speaker 1: to be literate. You didn't have to read a newspaper.
14:55
Speaker 1: You would have heard other people talking about it. And
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Speaker 1: we don't know how many of these were reports were
15:00
Speaker 1: maybe exaggerated, going to the point about tabloid journalism, but
15:05
Speaker 1: we do know that the good people of Gevildonald spring
15:08
Speaker 1: into action, right. They were offering bounties. Hunters were teaming
15:14
Speaker 1: up and combing through the countryside. Uh you know, they
15:17
Speaker 1: were looking for this mysterious creature, but that often meant
15:21
Speaker 1: that they were just culling anything they might they thought
15:24
Speaker 1: might one day attack a person. Uh, and and their
15:28
Speaker 1: site that they're like reported sightings of it getting away
15:32
Speaker 1: I think October eight, same year, seventeen sixty four, the
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Speaker 1: beast is seen stalking as you described a lone person,
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Speaker 1: a male, and hunters followed the animal into the woods.
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Speaker 1: They managed to flush it out in the open. They
15:47
Speaker 1: shot a bunch of musket fire at it. Of course, yes,
15:50
Speaker 1: muskets are notoriously inaccurate. They must have hit it because
15:55
Speaker 1: the beasts fell down. But then what did it do? Well,
15:58
Speaker 1: it's obviously and you know, uh, immortal demon from hell.
16:03
Speaker 1: So clearly it got back up and ran away. You
16:06
Speaker 1: know everybody knows that, um did. Did you mention that
16:09
Speaker 1: they were like bounty hunters that were after this thing, Ben, Yeah, yes,
16:13
Speaker 1: some people put up bounties, which inspired a lot of
16:16
Speaker 1: the hunters, I think, and that's certainly what inspired the
16:19
Speaker 1: two main characters. Sorry I keep harping on it. That
16:22
Speaker 1: does love this movie so much. In Brotherhood of the Wolf,
16:24
Speaker 1: there the two these two like ninja guys that you know,
16:26
Speaker 1: where these amazing like peaked hats like you'd see in like, uh,
16:30
Speaker 1: you know, Washington Crossing the Potomac. It's it's very cool looking,
16:34
Speaker 1: very stylized. They have these amazing scarves that cover like
16:37
Speaker 1: just under their noses, and it's really cool costume design
16:40
Speaker 1: that movie. And these two guys are the ones that
16:42
Speaker 1: are actually after it, uh in a detective capacity, but
16:45
Speaker 1: also in like a you know, sick bounty hunter kind
16:48
Speaker 1: of badass kind of capacity. And I'll say this, it's
16:51
Speaker 1: one of my favorite films. Actually, it's one of the
16:53
Speaker 1: reasons I was so happy to get to talk about
16:55
Speaker 1: this at length. Well, it's got some problematic stuff. It's
16:59
Speaker 1: got the you know, the mysterious partner from the Native
17:04
Speaker 1: American community. That's right, Yeah, I forgot about that. But
17:09
Speaker 1: the characters are so oh gosh. I thought for a
17:13
Speaker 1: time it might have been based on a video game.
17:15
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie. I thought it might be like
17:17
Speaker 1: a French Mortal Kombat or something, and I was too
17:20
Speaker 1: scared to ask anybody whether that was correct. You're totally
17:23
Speaker 1: ripe in and there's there's even a badass woman character
17:26
Speaker 1: that gets into the action and reveals that she's also
17:29
Speaker 1: an incredible Mortal Kombat and Ninja. Um. Sorry we keep
17:32
Speaker 1: gushing about this movie. I think we're on the same
17:33
Speaker 1: page here. Um. But it was one of those things too,
17:37
Speaker 1: where like you see in a lot of killer movies
17:40
Speaker 1: or monster movies, there's okay, we got it, it's it's dead,
17:44
Speaker 1: and then the twist is and then the killing continues.
17:47
Speaker 1: You know. So oftentimes, because of the bounty, there would
17:50
Speaker 1: be these bounty hunters or hunters trying to make a
17:53
Speaker 1: buck bringing in this thing. They would purport to be
17:56
Speaker 1: the beast because they didn't know what kind of animal
17:59
Speaker 1: it was. My just be a wolf of quite and
18:01
Speaker 1: there was I think in the movie there's even one
18:03
Speaker 1: person that brings in a particularly large and nasty looking wolf. Um,
18:09
Speaker 1: and they do, i think closed the case briefly until
18:13
Speaker 1: the killing. And and there's a conspiracy on the part
18:16
Speaker 1: of the monarchy where they say, just give us something
18:19
Speaker 1: so that we we can say we've solved the problems.
18:23
Speaker 1: Let's maybe talk a little bit about the descriptions of
18:27
Speaker 1: this creature. What did it look like, how did it behave?
18:31
Speaker 1: Because what we're gonna find is that these descriptions don't
18:34
Speaker 1: all match sometimes. I mean, it was typically described as
18:39
Speaker 1: something that seemed wolf like, so seemed like a mammal,
18:43
Speaker 1: but it was sometimes described as as large as a calf,
18:48
Speaker 1: sometimes as large as a as a horse. I believe
18:51
Speaker 1: reddish in color, had some sort of distinct coloration dark
18:56
Speaker 1: coloration along at spine, and you know, went to great
19:00
Speaker 1: lengths to try to make their case. And this was
19:03
Speaker 1: the beast, and and and really you know, it took
19:05
Speaker 1: to the next level. Some of them did by shoving
19:07
Speaker 1: pieces of clothing, you know, into the stomachs of the
19:11
Speaker 1: dead wolves with a stick or something like that. And
19:14
Speaker 1: of course there's no like forensics at this time. You
19:16
Speaker 1: can't match you know, blood samples from Abe's stomach to
19:20
Speaker 1: the you know, the victim. So it would all just
19:23
Speaker 1: be kind of like visual and confirmation that would be
19:27
Speaker 1: where where it would end. Yeah, we do know a
19:29
Speaker 1: couple of consistent things in the reporting. So it appeared
19:34
Speaker 1: to be active in the evenings and in the mornings,
19:37
Speaker 1: which means in the world of biology, it is a
19:40
Speaker 1: crepuscular animal. It's active during the twilight hours when the
19:44
Speaker 1: hunting is is perfect for it. It's an ambush hunter.
19:48
Speaker 1: It appeared to stalk people, usually loan women, or children,
19:52
Speaker 1: but also dudes as well, and it would seize these
19:56
Speaker 1: people by the throat. When you looked at a body
19:59
Speaker 1: of it victims, you would see a lot of wounds
20:02
Speaker 1: were on the head and the limbs. And with the
20:06
Speaker 1: decapitations you mentioned, uh, yeah, it is true that at
20:10
Speaker 1: least sixteen people were reportedly found decapitate. That's coming to
20:14
Speaker 1: us from history dot com. And already we have to
20:20
Speaker 1: tip our hats to our tricorn hats to some of
20:23
Speaker 1: the contemporaneous investigators of the day, because they were already
20:28
Speaker 1: trying to guess what sort of real life, non supernatural
20:32
Speaker 1: animal it might be. There's a guy named Lafonte who
20:35
Speaker 1: wrote in a report that was pretty early in the
20:39
Speaker 1: days of the beast Reign of Terror, where he said
20:43
Speaker 1: that the beast has a snout that's kind of like
20:45
Speaker 1: it calves and has very long hair, and to him
20:49
Speaker 1: it meant that it could be a hyena, and like,
20:52
Speaker 1: I think, along the way here, we're going to be
20:54
Speaker 1: gathering these different possible culprits, right, possible susfects. But other
21:01
Speaker 1: people had more exaggerated or more extreme descriptions of the beast.
21:07
Speaker 1: Yeah he he, he actually described it looking more like
21:11
Speaker 1: a leopard, or at least in the way its body
21:13
Speaker 1: was long and Slender described it as having a breast
21:17
Speaker 1: as wide as a horse, and also referred to that
21:21
Speaker 1: red coloration with that black stripe. Should we spoil it
21:25
Speaker 1: real quick? The movie what it ends up being, it's
21:28
Speaker 1: cool because it obviously takes all of this into account
21:30
Speaker 1: and then makes it the most ridiculous and extreme version
21:34
Speaker 1: of all of this stuff. Yeah, okay, spoiler. In the
21:38
Speaker 1: In the film, it's a juvenile lion wearing crazy armor. Yes,
21:43
Speaker 1: of course, it looks like battle Cat from he Man
21:46
Speaker 1: or something. You know, they articulated jaw, it's made out
21:50
Speaker 1: a bone of some yeah that like moves exactly moves
21:54
Speaker 1: with it, and like extra stuff around the clause and
21:58
Speaker 1: like the you know, spines of spikes along its back,
22:01
Speaker 1: and uh, it ends up being like there's a there's
22:04
Speaker 1: a beast Master, a shadowy beast Master. And then the movie,
22:08
Speaker 1: Oh god, you guys really have to see this, and
22:10
Speaker 1: none of this that we're telling you was going to
22:11
Speaker 1: spoil your enjoyment of the movie at all, because it's
22:13
Speaker 1: just a bonker's romp of of of a film. And Ben,
22:22
Speaker 1: there were even some reports that you know there there
22:25
Speaker 1: was perhaps some occult occultishness foot here. Yes, uh, there
22:33
Speaker 1: were multiple witnesses who claimed the beast had uncanny supernatural abilities,
22:39
Speaker 1: that I could walk on its hind feet, that it
22:42
Speaker 1: was bullet proof, that I have fire in its eyes,
22:45
Speaker 1: and that, like we said earlier, it was very Jason Vorhees,
22:48
Speaker 1: it just kept coming back from the dead. You know,
22:52
Speaker 1: we can't blame people for believing this. They were terrified,
22:56
Speaker 1: they may have known someone who died. They also were
22:59
Speaker 1: very complimentary its leaping abilities, according to Smithsonian magazine. And yeah,
23:04
Speaker 1: it it really became such a cause. I have the
23:09
Speaker 1: over appreciation there of of people trying to make a
23:11
Speaker 1: name for themselves, you know as being brave or maybe
23:15
Speaker 1: some some disgraced soldiers that wanted to clean up their
23:19
Speaker 1: reputation and and have sort of like a underdog, you know,
23:23
Speaker 1: coming back kind of moment um there. You know, the
23:26
Speaker 1: numbers kept going up. Officials were losing their minds. Aristocrats
23:31
Speaker 1: were freaked out because they're like, well, what if it
23:32
Speaker 1: comes into my palace and and uh and during my bathtime.
23:36
Speaker 1: The mals me um Etienne Lafonte, who was a regional
23:40
Speaker 1: government delegate and a gentleman captain by the name of
23:44
Speaker 1: Jean Baptiste duomel Um were in charge of the infantry
23:50
Speaker 1: in the region, and they decided it was time to
23:53
Speaker 1: take this thing to the next level and essentially put
23:56
Speaker 1: together a volunteer army, a militia. And we're not talking
24:01
Speaker 1: just like a little search hunting party. We're talking about
24:04
Speaker 1: like a full on, like battle mode. Yeah, thirty thousand people.
24:09
Speaker 1: At one point. Dum All organized the guys based on
24:12
Speaker 1: what he knew from his experience in the military, and
24:16
Speaker 1: they also left poison bait. They tried to do some
24:20
Speaker 1: I guess like sting operations. They had soldiers dresses peasant
24:24
Speaker 1: women and walk around yeah hoping. I wonder who drew
24:27
Speaker 1: the damn me. I hope no beasts are out tonight.
24:31
Speaker 1: I wonder if if it was something where people thought
24:34
Speaker 1: it was a bad job, or if there were dudes
24:36
Speaker 1: who were like champion at the bit to volunteer and
24:38
Speaker 1: they were like, this is my time. I mean, you know,
24:41
Speaker 1: back in those days, wasn't the fashion pretty effect anyway,
24:46
Speaker 1: with like powdered wigs and lacey doiley outfits and you know,
24:50
Speaker 1: little little shoes and pantyhose, you know, yeah, like I
24:54
Speaker 1: will dress as the peasant woman if I can keep
24:56
Speaker 1: the costume afterwards, exactly. I think that's right. Then, I
25:00
Speaker 1: think that's right. Um. But for for doom l in particular,
25:04
Speaker 1: it was a way, like like I said at the top,
25:05
Speaker 1: a way to redeem his honor after the war, because
25:10
Speaker 1: he's described by the historian Smith that we mentioned as
25:14
Speaker 1: having many signs of quote wounded masculinity quote from him
25:19
Speaker 1: from his book. He had a highly sensitive regard for
25:22
Speaker 1: his own honor and had some bad experiences in the war,
25:25
Speaker 1: and looked at this challenge of the defeating the beast
25:27
Speaker 1: as a way to redeem himself. Yep. And there were
25:31
Speaker 1: there were some other redemptive arcs here, because we have
25:34
Speaker 1: to remember, for a lot of the reading public, this
25:37
Speaker 1: was playing out like an action film, you know, this
25:41
Speaker 1: was an ongoing case, and the press would, uh, the
25:46
Speaker 1: press eventually used its power to get King Louis himself
25:50
Speaker 1: to to lend a hand in the search for the beast.
25:53
Speaker 1: Because when they would describe how peasants escaped the beast,
25:58
Speaker 1: the ones who survived, they always said, look at this
26:02
Speaker 1: like heroic, noble person, especially children they're defending themselves. You know,
26:07
Speaker 1: these good salt of the earth people. This is real France.
26:11
Speaker 1: This is what we're here for, and this is the
26:16
Speaker 1: this is what makes our country possible. Also a great
26:19
Speaker 1: pr opportunity. Oh yeah, oh brother, you got it. And
26:23
Speaker 1: so uh, there was one story that really got to Louis.
26:27
Speaker 1: It was this guy named Jacques port Fame. He was
26:31
Speaker 1: a young boy and he was hanging out with his pals,
26:34
Speaker 1: his running crew. I know we all had one when
26:36
Speaker 1: we were kids as cattle boys. Yes, yes, yes, there
26:39
Speaker 1: were somewhere between eight to twelve. And they were watching
26:43
Speaker 1: the cows, right, they were cow poking. I just is
26:46
Speaker 1: that like cow tipping? You just I don't know. I
26:50
Speaker 1: keep hearing I'm thinking of the phrase cow poke. But
26:52
Speaker 1: you know what, we're working live. We were a fan
26:55
Speaker 1: and we're a family show too, So let's let's not
26:58
Speaker 1: explore the origins of that weird term. Yeah, right, at
27:01
Speaker 1: this exact moment, let's say these these young uh, these
27:04
Speaker 1: young cattlemen. On January twelfth, seventeen sixty five, they were
27:09
Speaker 1: out there in the field doing their thing, hanging out,
27:11
Speaker 1: taking care of the livestock. The beast attacked, but these
27:15
Speaker 1: kids weren't you know, they weren't running solo. They were
27:20
Speaker 1: ranging in a crew and they had pikes. So together,
27:23
Speaker 1: through cooperation, they managed to fend the monster off, and
27:28
Speaker 1: Jacques was portrayed as the protagonist, the hero of the story,
27:32
Speaker 1: and people loved his courage so much that the king
27:35
Speaker 1: heard about it and he thought, I don't know if
27:38
Speaker 1: this is altruism. I don't know if he was really
27:41
Speaker 1: touched or if it was like a political move, but
27:43
Speaker 1: either way, he gave all the kids a reward, and
27:48
Speaker 1: then he said, I'll pick you, Jacques, and you were
27:51
Speaker 1: going to be educated. We're gonna make a learned man
27:54
Speaker 1: out of you, and I'm gonna pay the tab. I'll
27:57
Speaker 1: take care of all your tuition. Good job, go peasants.
28:01
Speaker 1: Yeah you have you other lesser kids, just can you know,
28:04
Speaker 1: wither away in the streets for all. Take the money
28:06
Speaker 1: and and and of course you can imagine this was
28:11
Speaker 1: used by the pro monarchy forces to be like, look
28:15
Speaker 1: how much the king loves you. He's such a lovely guy.
28:18
Speaker 1: He understands you, he's just like you. In fact, By
28:22
Speaker 1: the way, then what's a pike? Is it just a
28:25
Speaker 1: pointy stick? Isn't that basically what a pike is? You got,
28:28
Speaker 1: It's a really long, whole weapon, typically has a spear
28:33
Speaker 1: at the end or a pointed implement of some sort.
28:36
Speaker 1: You always hear about heads on pikes when people are
28:39
Speaker 1: made an example out of a display them outside the
28:41
Speaker 1: castle gates on pikes exactly. And the publicity around these
28:48
Speaker 1: children surviving the beast also inspired the royal court to
28:53
Speaker 1: send out sanctioned royal hunters to find and eliminate this creature.
28:59
Speaker 1: And by this point it's so weird to talk about
29:03
Speaker 1: mass media in like seventeen hundreds, but by this point
29:07
Speaker 1: people outside of France were following the stories too, people
29:11
Speaker 1: across the Atlantic. People in Boston were like, did you
29:15
Speaker 1: hear there's a new update on the Beast of I
29:18
Speaker 1: know that Nolan I both sound like Lumier from Beauty
29:21
Speaker 1: and the Beasts. It's our only frame of reference, Casey
29:24
Speaker 1: shout out to you for your patients. Totally. Oh, how
29:29
Speaker 1: do you say it? Male? It's a little strong perfect
29:32
Speaker 1: pronunciation there, start leading into the Lumier. But that that
29:38
Speaker 1: is appropriate because we have no Casey, uh learned that
29:44
Speaker 1: We've we're just too excited about this story. To make
29:47
Speaker 1: it one episode. There's too much cool stuff, agreed. Uh,
29:51
Speaker 1: this story is gonna go some twisty and interesting places.
29:54
Speaker 1: Definitely don't see Brotherhood of the Wolf until after you've
29:56
Speaker 1: heard of this podcast, because then, yeah, I would, I
29:58
Speaker 1: would wait, and I'm telling you're gonna love it. Gosh,
30:01
Speaker 1: I can't just say I gotta watch it. I'm gonna
30:03
Speaker 1: watch it this weekend. I haven't seen it. I think
30:05
Speaker 1: I saw it once when it came out in theaters,
30:07
Speaker 1: and I remember so much about it, but you obviously
30:09
Speaker 1: been have a special fondness for it. An owner on
30:12
Speaker 1: DVD and Andre reminding me of things that I kind
30:15
Speaker 1: of forgot. So I'm gonna revisit that. By the way, Ben,
30:18
Speaker 1: this is a crossover to another show that we do together.
30:20
Speaker 1: Stuff they don't want you to know. You know, what
30:21
Speaker 1: I watched yesterday was that I watched the movie Vibes
30:25
Speaker 1: with Uh with Jeff Goldbloom and Side Lapper and Peter Falk,
30:30
Speaker 1: and highly recommend that one to anyone as well if
30:34
Speaker 1: you like a thing like Ghostbusters, sort of a goofy
30:37
Speaker 1: supernatural like rom com. I was expecting it to be bad,
30:41
Speaker 1: and I'm not saying it's good, but it's like good.
30:45
Speaker 1: It has a vibe. Oh, it has some serious vibes.
30:48
Speaker 1: And that's how you can watch that on Amazon Prime
30:50
Speaker 1: for free. And I bet your Brotherhood of the What's
30:52
Speaker 1: see where you can stream Brotherhood nowhere? Really I was
30:55
Speaker 1: looking for it last night and um yeah, physical media
30:58
Speaker 1: looks to be the only way right now. Gonna have
31:00
Speaker 1: to find yourself a DVD copy or right to us
31:03
Speaker 1: on on Instagram, Facebook, and maybe Ben Will will loan
31:06
Speaker 1: out his copy for you. I would I would love to.
31:09
Speaker 1: I think all three of us are. All three of
31:12
Speaker 1: us are into the idea. There is already a waiting
31:14
Speaker 1: list because we are going to send the DVD to
31:17
Speaker 1: Casey so we can get some official evaluation there because
31:21
Speaker 1: you have not seen it, Casey, no, I I very
31:24
Speaker 1: much remember when this came out, and I meant to
31:26
Speaker 1: see it back when it did come out, but I
31:27
Speaker 1: never got around to it. And actually it looks like
31:30
Speaker 1: on DVD there's like a director's cut, so uh, there's
31:33
Speaker 1: some extra stuff in there that you may have not
31:35
Speaker 1: seen it at all. Right, I love it? Okay, Well
31:37
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to get get ahold of that, and
31:39
Speaker 1: um yeah, I think you'll you'll get a kick out
31:41
Speaker 1: of the case because it is beautifully shot and and
31:43
Speaker 1: the acting is great. It's it's a little like scenery
31:46
Speaker 1: chewing at times, but it's just a real interesting hybrid
31:49
Speaker 1: type movie that I don't think I've ever seen anything
31:51
Speaker 1: quite like it. And we didn't ruin the film for you, Casey.
31:53
Speaker 1: By the way, No, no, definitely not. Is that one
31:56
Speaker 1: of those where like the plot matters well. As I'm reading,
32:02
Speaker 1: as we're going through the story, I'm realizing they did
32:06
Speaker 1: use a lot of the stuff from the real story.
32:08
Speaker 1: But then they, you know, really judged it up, as
32:11
Speaker 1: you say, Ben, like with some kung fu supernatural weirdness.
32:17
Speaker 1: And it's worth every moment invested. So highly recommend you
32:20
Speaker 1: check that out. Also highly recommend you check out our
32:23
Speaker 1: Facebook group Ridiculous Historians, where you can get in on
32:25
Speaker 1: the conversation about this and other episodes. All you gotta
32:29
Speaker 1: do is name names, you know, like me or Ben
32:31
Speaker 1: or Casey or or Alex Leaves. We composed our theme
32:34
Speaker 1: that's the quist or anything to let us know that
32:36
Speaker 1: you're a person that's aware of the show. Now, that
32:39
Speaker 1: is a top notch course in the art of the segue, Well,
32:42
Speaker 1: I am impressed. Yes, thanks as well to Christopher Hasciotis,
32:46
Speaker 1: thanks to Eve's Jeff Coach, thanks to our our own
32:51
Speaker 1: research bodyguard, Gabe Blues. Yep, and you know I'm suspecting Gabe.
32:56
Speaker 1: I don't know if you're gonna listen to this one,
32:58
Speaker 1: but I'm suspecting you as well. May have not seen
33:01
Speaker 1: The Brotherhood of the Wolf because we didn't. We didn't
33:05
Speaker 1: talk about it, so uh, let us know when your
33:07
Speaker 1: birthday is next Surprised when you hear from us. We'll
33:11
Speaker 1: see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from my
33:21
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
33:24
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.