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The podcast on Haunted Hill will contain spoilers and swearing.

I am the devil, and I am here to do the devil's work.

So there's my con.

Be one of us.

It is time to keep your

Hello and welcome to the

Haunted Hill Episode 189. His name is Dan.

You were a little slow at getting into it.

I know, I know, my I didn't give me any c clue of any sort of format, my brain freestyles out of it.

Hi everybody.

Hello everybody.

Is your first time listening?

Welcome back.

Welcome friend.

Oh yeah.

If you're a regular listener.

Welcome back.

Yes.

partial to the show here and there. Let's pop round the side.

That's one of her old jokes.

It is an old joke, it feels like an old joke now. Sorry.

engendered. Uh

Vampires, werewolves, universal monsters.

Bigfoot.

Everything of the animal kingdom.

Uh sorry, apologies, we've not been here.

We we uh wanted to be here but we just couldn't be here for a little bit, which we'll get on to soon. Um uh but it's lovely to be back again. Um me and Dan are very very excited for this episode. So um Dan, how are you? Are you alright?

I'm good thank you, yeah. Not too bad. Better than I was. Um

Absolutely.

Yes, we're returning with uh just one movie and we'll talk more about we may have shifted the format of the show and we'll talk about that in a moment. We're only covering one film and what better film to return to podcasting with than one that we believe it or not we haven't covered and that is

The return of the li-

Dead from 1985. A movie that we both love, spoiler alert. Cannot believe we haven't covered it in 12 years of podcasting. So yeah, we're we're only going to be talking about that movie, but we have got a lot to catch up on because we've been away for five months.

So we're gonna be talking about lots of stuff that we've watched over the last five months between us. Just in you know, not in great detail, but we'll just c catch you guys up on what we've been watching.

him and also because this is the first episode of the year technically um we have got the time machine dusted off gal

It needed a new fuse. The batteries had run down in the into the cockpit. Some wiring had to be

Some birds and shit on it. Uh uh loads of stuff had happened, you know.

I had to get um Christopher Lloyd around here to uh tap fiddle with my flex capacitor.

I had to get a new vanilla magic tree for it.

Yeah. But it's all up and running. Um so we'll we'll be hopping back in time to check out the year that was twenty twenty five.

Did want to say to you though, the toy that is a little iffy. Uh if you're gonna flush it, just give it a good good yank down. It should go.

There is no toilet in this home machine. That's my coffee. Have you been shitting in my coffee maker?

your percolator.

Yes, that's what I use to make coffee while I'm travelling in time.

I'll see you like that.

Oh um

So um well let's let's let's catch everybody up on what's happened and where we've been. So apologies like you say, Gav for the hiatus.

I just note very quickly, um, uh this doesn't matter to anybody at all because they're listening to it in any sort of climate they are. But w Madan and I are right now um in in very hot circumstances.

It's very

It's not the police are not after us, but I mean we are it we are just at hot. It's it's the middle it's not even the middle of summer at all. It isn't at all. It's like not even the summer. It's the end of spring.

We're just having a shit.

It.

We're having a heat wave in the United Kingdom at the moment. Which is nice because we've had a lot of rain.

But uh so you might hear odd car passing in the distance, but most windows are shut um and I'm doing that for

For you guys.

He's got his shirt off, as always.

Um uh yeah, uh it's really good to be back. Um uh the void we have left you, uh we hope we can now over and fill those holes.

tightly and make you all happy and have your voids totally filled in which was without us. Now you will be with us.

Thank you patrons for sticking with us as well. We massively appreciated that. That is fucking you know, thank you so much. That's a that tells us that you guys uh kick ass and uh uh uh what does it do? Kung Fu for the Lord and kick ass. Kick ass for the lord.

Yes.

I don't know if you're king as a lord, but you like to make the channel podcast. So that's good.

Thank you. Yes so thank you to everybody uh who's stuck with us and especially thank you to everybody who's reached out to me.

um and sent me metal messages, multiple messages some of you. For anybody that doesn't know, and I'm I'm okay to talk about this now, uh unfortunately lost my dad on Boxing Day of 2025 very unexpectedly.

Uh probably still in shock to be honest with you, um, because he was a very big, strong, healthy man. Um turns out he wasn't, but um as far as we all knew, he was. So uh that was a strange end to the Christmas period.

Yeah, so that's where we've been. I just haven't been able to pull myself out of that sort of

whole as it were. I I'm okay, uh I'm cracking on, you know I i I thought it would be similar to losing my mum seven years ago, but it's a very different grief because this was completely out of the blue and unexpected.

Um I took two months off of work. They were very supportive with me. Um, partly because I've got we've got a lot to sort out because he's he was my last parent obviously, so I've got all the estate and everything to sort out. Um but also partly just because it was

Sad and weird time. Um, trying to support the kids and my wife, and then be supported by them. Um, so that's where I've been, um, but I'm okay.

Um and I do appreciate I've had multiple messages, like I say, from our listeners, our supporters, people on Facebook and especially our patrons, lots of you patrons have been reaching out to me and saying there's no rush, take your time.

Um I did post up a couple of things on Facebook. Gradually got myself back into not just podcasting but just watching films because um and I know this is a subject you wanna talk about in a moment, Gav, because

My dad was the one that got me into film as much as I am. Me and him would often have trivia offs.

as it were, about films and, you know, he got me into Bruce Lee and

uh horror like John Carpenter and and stuff like that. In fact, I thought about this the other day, if it wasn't for my dad, my son wouldn't be called Jack, because as we all know, Jack is named after Jackie Cham. Um so yeah.

And and the the podcasting wise, you didn't really want to sort of spend time talking about movies'cause you did it with your father so much as well, so

Yeah, and it it just felt like I didn't know if it was a a hurdle I could get over straight away. Certainly not straight away.

That you could emotionally break on air, you know.

Obviously, you know, it's fucking rubbish and you know, you had my support for the whole thing.

You did. You've been amazing. Uh you and a couple of our close friends, but you and and one or two other people especially have been amazing with me and I love you for that.

Oh, sorry, uh like I said I'm selfish, I do it because I I I need uh to have supported back when it can't time comes, unfortunately. Um

And um that's what we have to be. We have to be there for everybody. Um so um in speaking of which, do you give uh any uh words of advice to anyone that might be going through this in uh could you

Uh I know obvious I know obviously you're still grieving and you always will do. Um

I think I would say talk about it. As a as um we the part of the reason I'm back doing this now is my wife said, You and Galf are such advocates for men's mental health. It's important that you get back out there and talk about it. So I think mm talk about it.

Is one thing I would say.

You and I doing this podcast when we spend hours talking to each other for this, we obviously do it for the listeners, but w at the end of the day if you didn't have listeners we'd do we would probably still do it. Um because we have mental health it helps us talking like this. So talking definitely helps.

Yeah, t so talk about it, talk about your feelings. Don't be afraid to cry. I'm a big crier anyway, so that's fine. Um and

Nothing will no day no two days will be alike, is what I would say. And I sort of mean that both in terms of losing both parents seven years apart, very different types of grief. But also there could be days

you know, very close to losing him. A week or two later I was sort of laughing and happy and then six weeks later I'd have two or three days where I just

didn't want to get out of bed and I was very upset, you know, and and I've also had anger, um j just just all the m the emotions really. Um so I just say go with it.

ride the wave, but the most important thing really is just know that it everything you feel is normal.

Uh

Um but if you if talking to your friends and family isn't doing it, then by all means go professional. I haven't, but there's no shame in that.

you know, a lot of people these days speak to people, therapists, etcetera. Go go professional if you need it.'Cause they and I probably should and maybe I could do and maybe I still might one day. But um

You could even if it's just one or two sessions.

Indeed, indeed. But that's where I've been, and we're back. I'm back.

Yeah, totally. I am gonna say if you can, but it's it's kinda a bit like depression though, isn't it really? Um

Uh you can't control it um with especially depression you definitely don't want to do much. If though you're going through anything and but you have a day when you're actually like able to do things, I really do recommend the gym.

Or exercising um for mental health as well. Um I think I find it very good. Uh lifting weights I find really good. It's a very

No.

Okay.

Just a big

Um uh I find that just lifting weights stuff like the pure focus on that and it is um it's a a thing you have to get through um and that you can use it as a metaphor as well. But yes, um if you can. But yes, thank you Dan and I um everybody uh loves you to bit.

We are all here, we all support you, we are all here.

The sun is shining.

We are. And did you wanna quickly talk about something that's happened to you recently as well? Um

Yeah, my yeah, my uh my uncle uh passed away a couple of weeks ago. He was um um my mum's brother.

Um, he was the person that got me into films. He was a film projectionist, um, as his job was when we went to pick up the death certificate the other day and that's all the information.

He um uh and he got me into films. Um I used to go around to his house when I was a little kid and he had all the big Warner Brother video tapes which is I think would reason I saw collect those ones, like the big rounded ones.

Uh yeah, the only ones of any interest he had because even at that point when I was a kid, I must have been about ten, I was into already into f film collecting, ho horror movies already.

Like I was already into it, it's like Lost Boys, uh my collection Fry Night, you know. And I went there and I remember the only ones in his co I was oh, it's the some Doctor Who's. That was the closest he got to horror and I was like, God, got it

The only one I've really got is um Enter the Dragon, an X Rental big box.

Nice, the Warner Brothers one, yeah?

Yeah.

Oh man, that's a good one. I don't have that. That's a good one.

I've got that. That was one of my dads, actually.

I'll have to have a look.

In fact, I think I've got a couple of Bruce Lee ones. I might even have um the big boss like that as well I think. I bought them all for X Rental.

the five or six previously films in the box uh okay in the case

Yeah.

Uh but yes, so um rest in peace to your father and my uncle.

Yeah, indeed.

Um uh yeah, but he got me into films and um yeah, so uh I'm possibly going around tomorrow to pick up his film collection'cause he wanted me to have it.

And that's really sweet.

Um it's I'll go through it but it's gonna be some really random I I'd say noirs. I don't have to say noirs, they're kind of n I don't know what they are.

I'll have to figure out what these films are, but I d I don't know. I'll hopefully find some bits and bobs that share.

Rydyn ni'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd.

It's interesting that um you and I o often share similar parallel life journeys and we both have have obviously lost people close to us who got us into films recently, which is very strange.

Um but like you say, we're back now, so we can talk about a few bits and bobs and then we'll get into what we've been watching. Um Gaff, did you want to talk about Deadbolt's latest project, Dead Deadbolt films?

Yeah, well, since last year, because we went to a podcast this year, and we...

Yeah, that's great.

We started a debug films. We're doing at the moment uh it's got about a week and a half left of the end of May, is where we're at now.

Um if you're listening to this. Um if you'd like to fund us or just have a look at look look at what is on Crowdfunder uh Baited, you can just type that into Crowdfunder and you'll find it or baited movie. Um we're doing like a found footage movie. It's about pedophile hunters.

Um

Basically something going wrong for them at the beginning, uh an accident happens and then they like they all give up. Uh then a year later they realise that they can get a big fish, they can get one last

one last uh person that they wanted to get so they all get back together and they decide to follow this person.

Um and they follow into a house and then they go into the house and uh stuff happens. I but I'm not gonna say it'cause I don't wanna say. But um it's very it goes into descent into hell.

um, basically when they go into the house. And it's gonna be a cool horror movie. It's a fountain footage film, but it's not gonna be just as like the average found footage film we've shooting it on our red camera um and it will be like real p polished and very nice looking

Um, and it'd be different body cams in the c in the house, walking around and stuff and different things going on. But it's a really cool story as well.

Um, I don't know if you've read it or not, I'm not sure. Um but it's a really cool story. I don't want to get into it too much'cause it's a spoiler. But we are actually at the moment crowdfunding that for just at the moment, um five thousand pounds we've got to our target.

Um it stood on for a little bit more. Any more can help us, that's good. Th that isn't the budget of the film. That's just getting us going. Uh we need uh we've got some other investors we're going to just get the rest of the move money for the movie. I'm not sure what the budget's gonna be yet.

It's not a huge one, we just need to get going. It's so hard to make films. There's so many people out there. Every f imp independent filmmaker, the p hardest problem for everybody is getting funding. There's no it's d no money. It's just not out there. Um So you have to do it.

Especially this time, this sort of time in our j our lives.

No, it's really not. It's really, really not. Even like big good like big films and stuff are not being made for the same reason. Um so um

It goes back to my DIY way of filmmaking anyway, it's just do it yourself. Um so we're doing that. But the thing is though, we ca we can only you have to pay an actor, um you have to pay actors, you have to feed them, you you ultimately you have to have insurance.

Turned on to have the lights on. We've got most of the equipment luckily already.

But we still have to pay the actors and if you want a good job done we have to pay people. And then you've got a b a location, we have to rent out a location. All this shit costs money. But we can still do it for probably about

But I think if we did it with none of us getting paid, which I think might be going away if like we just do it for free. Um probably about thirty grand I think.

So it's not like a big thing, it's a foul footage movie, but we can still do a really decent job on that. Um we have asked we haven't had an answer yet, we have asked um a certain actor, um but I won't say to be in it.

Nicholas Cage.

Uh no, it's because I did ask someone else and they said no and I said, you'll be good for running off and I'm like, I don't mean

Yeah.

Ha ha ha!

Sorry

That's not a pedophile is definitely Kevin Bacon. He's played three or four paedops in his career, so

The th the thing is though, because of the nature of it, it's not essentially it it's not might not be a paedophone. I don't want to give the story away. So like you know, uh it could be something else. So that's where we're out of it. Um so it's kind of hard. But yeah, it's it's a quite a bit of a

I would say it's a boo subject but it's not. It's all in your face all the time and all these Peterville hunters and pedophiles and all this sort of stuff.

Yeah, it's always on Facebook and stuff, but

All the time and all so it's quite relevant really. It's just when you say to people, Making a movie about Peter van Hartner's it sounds to sir but

But at at the end of the day the film itself doesn't actually go down the lines of children's stuff. We don't see anything. There's n it the basically they're not even really a a part of the film, if that makes sense.

It's a it's a taboo subject. It's a taboo subject, but horror horror horror films do like to cover taboo subjects. I can't think of many that cover that kind of thing other than maybe hard candy and Orphan. Orphan isn't even really like that.

But um hard candy is is definitely like one.

It's quite a different film, um had quite a bit of interest. Uh Ben went out to Cannes Film Festival for a week, uh last week.

And he was out there promoting that and his short film The Tellin which we've pretty much finished. Um so it's good we've got some things going but we need to make this film first so we can then go on to make a an actual proper movie.

Uh I say proper movies intraditional. I don't I'm not dissing found footage in any way, I love found footage.

Um that's why I'm doing it. This would be my third found footage feature when it comes down to it. Um but uh this time I can do it with all the Deadbolt guys, um and we've not all done it together before. Um so it'd be really cool to see what done. We've done lots of short films.

all together so we know how to work together but having us all doing a feature would be pretty cool

And also it'd be nice to step out of the um phone footage uh genre just because you're freer, those are less constraints.

This one, I mean, is like we've never it'd be nice to do this one. This is foul footage though. This one. But yeah, next time

Afterwards.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We d yeah, I've got I've got something which can be made very, very cheaply, which is a exploration into sound.

um about uh sound recorders going out to the woods and just hearing a sound and him going, Oh and just just going f more and more into the woods and I was like, I can do a real experimental sound movie.

shot in the woods. Um so I wanna make that next. But I don't know, we've got loads of ideas. So but yeah we need to get going with it. Um it's you know.

Yes.

That's Deadbolt News. Um, I've got two bits to talk about, and then it's time to talk about what we've been watching for the last five months. Well, go on, have you got your hand up?

Go. I do that for now on. I have to do that with all the kids and that round around there'cause everyone talks at the same time'cause everyone's got fucking ADHD and no one can they keep it in, they have to do it, otherwise they forget it. And it's just like oh my god, so I just sit there with my hand up going, just remembering what I need to say, remember what I need to say.

The High Strangers Podcaster. Um we have um essentially stopped the main feed. Um Sarah and I decided to kind of give it up but

But we know in the future we'd like to do the odd episode and then get back to it at a later date. So I do apologise for you listeners out there uh on that, but we have been doing the extra, extra when we can, which seems to be like once a month. And it's kind of easier for Sarah

Because she's spending a lot of time doing research and she was struggling with just living uh with work and time management and everything and it's just not possible. So sorry about that. Um

Poor Gav had no podcasting to do for several months.

Podcast and I've been like Right I need to start my own podcast. Now it wasn't in a negative rate to you guys. I was just like, Right, I need to do my own podcast and I was like, Right and so I was I started writ I wrote out a few episodes to do. I was gonna do the video shop which is gonna be my YouTube channel eventually where I do a

uh uh of which is the plan is to do a um little YouTube shop uh where it's basic Didding you go in and it's a video shop and it's Hi, welcome and then I recommend a video tape from my video collection.

I plan on doing that. Or actually I think I'll do Blu-rays and DVDs as well. Do you know what I mean? Um I plan on doing that. So I did think oh I could actually do that as an audio one. So I did actually work out uh to do like a solo

the video shop podcast to start doing that then introducing to the video. So at some point I might do it because something I can do whenever I I'm free to do it myself.

But I do like bouncing back and forth podcasting with like with you.

It is fun. It is fun. Um Okay, cool. So, uh a couple of bits to talk about before we get into what we've been watching. First of all, this is your annual

um, announcement. All you listeners out there, the heat is on, as they say.

Get out your Texas Changel Massacre, your copy of Joel's, uh all your hot summer movies.

I started watching Joel the other day, Spielberg's Jewel, and I was like, oh yeah, this is a well hot movie. The whole time the guy's just w wiping his brow.

And even Return of the Living Dead is a very hot movie.

Not of the big heat, not of the heat.

I always say the name wrong. But um I love that movie. I need to get a copy of my collection.

So make sure you you're watching all your hot movies.

Tony, I've been buying lots of movies actually. I've been buying lots of um uh recently on eBay. I'm gonna put up my ebay and just say w randomly what I've bought recently.

Um I just wanted to start getting my Blu ray collection like like the DVDs like they're fine but it's just like I wanna start getting like the ones I really love on Blu-ray and I'm I've been selling loads of

um uh vinyl and I've been making making all right money with it and it's on our ebay and I was like, Fuck it, I'm just gonna start buying some of my um

Buying some uh buying some films. So uh on Blu-ray, Commando Nice. Uh uh this is just a movie I just saw and I bought it anyway. The watch. I quite like the watch.

Oh yes, yes, I have seen it. It's a bit like an American version of um Um It's one of the dad style but with Indy.

Kind of. I uh the first time I watched it I I thought I don't really like this one and then

on prime repeat view and so I really enjoy this movie to the point where I'm like I might have to say to you like we're gonna do the watch. Um The Wolfman, the two thousand and ten run. Um I actually quite like that film and I thought Blu-ray um The Howlin, the original one Blu-ray, got a really nice box for it as well.

as well. Uh Ghost Stories, I thought I'd pick up on Blu-ray. Uh The Green Marl.

And um haunted honeymoon.

Oh baby.

That was a tenner. That was the most expensive one.

Well that's quite rare to find, what did Honeymoon? I mean we covered that uh a long time ago for a Gene Wilder special.

Do you know what? Here we go then. I remember when we covered that, when we covered that, when the time I watched it during the notes, I was just going through my breakout of my marriage.

Yeah.

And I struggled, really struggled, and I loved that movie as a kid. I love that movie so much, but I struggled when we did the review and me doing the notes for it because at the point I was just in a very low place. And I hadn't seen it until uh

about three weeks ago it was I I put the D V on I was like fuck I'm gonna watch that again. Loved it so much. I was like, oh I love this film so much. So I was like Blue Rain again I'm blue right and I'm watching it again and I'cause I j I put out my life because I watched it at a point when I was really low.

So that wasn't i that was to me a flag of being low. So I couldn't walk I d do you know what I mean?

Yeah, I like that. Weird.

Weird.

Well, talking of film collections, I've got some tragic news.

I know.

Yeah.

I've got a an external hand. Oh. an external hard drive two terabyte.

With

That's like they're opposite to a small penis, an extended.

Terrible. It's got thousands of films on it.

It's got it's got every episode of He Man, She Ra, Transformers, Teenage Ninja Totals, all my shows. It's got everything on now.

Backups. Backups.

Library f for years on there.

Um and I do delete stuff off of it. You know, sometimes I'll watch a film that back in the day when I used to download films naughty, I would put them on there as well and then I'd be like, Oh, I don't know why I ever wanted to watch that. It was shit. Delete. That's fine. So there's always a bit of space on there. Blah blah blah. Anyway.

I plugged it in yesterday.

and it's empty.

And I've done it.

You've got space on there, hard drive.

The whole thing is empty. Nothing's on there.

But but but does the space does our drive say a hundred and sixty gigs spare

Uh so I've googled it and looked into it and apparently Apparently this can happen um three to three to five years.

Yeah. Sometimes they can just have a malfunction and wipe themselves.

WTF?

So I've lost Thousands of films.

Yeah. Hundreds of thousands of hours of viewing. You know, all of my cartoons and stuff, stuff that I

Start picking up my DVD and get a little connection.

I know. So I'm really gutted about this, but at the same time I wasn't as upset as I thought. I just thought, oh well.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That it's it's yeah, w f when it comes down to the fact like what happened to you in December?

Exactly.

President over something like that. You go, Oh well, carry on.

Exactly. That has changed my outlook on things. I mean I'm gutted, I've lost so many films but

But but uh what you could do?

Yeah, so I basically um

Yeah, lost. Lost. It was about... 75% fraud.

So that's like one point seven five terabytes. But yeah, it's um it is what it is. Um

So that's that. And then the last thing I want to talk about before we get into what we've been watching is the the format of our show. Now we've been going for what 12 years or something ridiculous now. And we've always done the format of two films.

usually related or not always. Um sometimes by the same director, sometimes of the same genre, sometimes sequels. And we break that up with our World of the Strange segment.

Um everybody who listens knows how our show goes. And that makes for a l a long show, three to four hours usually per episode. We try and drop two episodes a month.

It's really hard work and too and too hard really to do that realistically, um, these days with everything that's going on.

It goes back to me and Sarah's reason for the high stranger, same thing.

Yeah. So Gav and I have had lots of talks over the last few months, but uh especially recently, and we've decided we're gonna mix things up, keep the show fresh as always, and we're gonna um go to a one film per

Episode format. Uh further foreseeable. This might change again. It's nice to mix things up. So that's why we're only doing one film for this episode.

Let us know what you think of that, uh as well.

Please. Our ideas, and I'll probably put a poll on Facebook as well, and then this goes out to you patrons as well. But anybody can message me directly. What we were thinking is I pick this film, for example, Return of the Living Dead.

Then Gal picks the film for the following episode. And then for the third episode, the patrons pick an episode uh pick a film. Now, we're happy to do two if the patrons still want two for their episode.

Or if they just want to ha pick that their favourite out of the two that they've selected, uh'cause I know some of you, you know, we sh probably should have done two or three by now,'cause we've been on on hiatus. So let us know what you think of that idea.

Do you want two or one for your patron? And obviously the

And everybody listening, just tell us.

And the new format, yeah, 24.