Re-release: Ski Weekend (Fear Street)

[00:00:00] You can never be too careful with guns though, I'll tell you.

[00:00:05] Lou said leading the two boys back to the fire.

[00:00:07] This old boy I knew named a Harve, Harve liked to hunt in the snow.

[00:00:11] Crazy jackass. Harve always said he could see the deer better in the snow.

[00:00:15] He couldn't hide as well. It may be easy to spot the deer in the snow but it's a heck of a lot harder to spot a hunter.

[00:00:21] Poor Harve got his head blown off by some fool hunter.

[00:00:24] Lou threw back his head and laughed. Doug joined in, shaking his head as he laughed.

[00:00:28] I didn't see the funny part. This Harve was a friend of yours, I asked?

[00:00:33] Yeah Lou replied and for some reason that made him laugh even harder.

[00:00:36] What a hideous story I thought staring at Lou's gun rack behind him and suddenly feeling another chill.

[00:00:41] Maybe we'll all go out hunting later. What do you say Lou asked?

[00:00:48] Hello and welcome to Say Podcast and Die.

[00:00:51] The podcast that's normally about the Goosebumps books.

[00:00:54] But today it is our very first episode about Fear Street.

[00:00:58] That's right. Today we're reading Ski Weekend, one of the Fear Street books.

[00:01:02] Yeah it's my first Fear Street book I ever read actually.

[00:01:05] Wow. So Louisa read them. I'm Andy by the way.

[00:01:08] And I'm Louisa?

[00:01:09] Yeah you. You Louisa. Read these Fear Streets.

[00:01:13] I did.

[00:01:14] I'm gonna need your help with putting together the larger universe.

[00:01:17] Oh god it's been so many years.

[00:01:19] Oh yeah I should also say we chose this for the seasonal theme and when it arrived that's when we realized that.

[00:01:23] That's when we realized it was a Fear Street book.

[00:01:25] Exactly. I'm really excited about those especially when it comes to shared universe because the Fear Street books are all set in the same universe.

[00:01:32] Explosively unlike the Goosebumps books which are all Stein Dennaise are said in the same universe book clearly are.

[00:01:38] Now I don't know if the Goosebumps first, the Fear Street verse and possibly the Point Horror verse are connected or separate so well I think the Goosebumps first and the Fear verse are separate.

[00:01:48] What about Point Horror?

[00:01:50] I think they're all individual the way the Goosebumps books are supposed to be.

[00:01:53] No no no we already discussed that the snowman and the babysitter have characters the Jeffers family.

[00:01:59] Right so I think they're they're I think Point Horror is its own thing.

[00:02:02] Oh well you're dispointing me so what else is new?

[00:02:06] What else is new?

[00:02:08] But Fear Street is not disappointing me.

[00:02:10] I thought this was pretty exciting book.

[00:02:12] It's really different from what we're used to.

[00:02:15] Yet still a lot of it boiled down to gender is trouble.

[00:02:20] Yes.

[00:02:21] The cover is everything you'd expect from a 1991 group of teens on a ski weekend.

[00:02:29] That's right we got we got some big hair we got some big sweaters we got skis we got a guy in a ski mask looking in.

[00:02:37] Yeah and his pose is a lot like actually big foot in that one video you know.

[00:02:42] Yeah it stops and turns.

[00:02:44] Yeah I'm striking a pose.

[00:02:45] Yeah I wondered if that's what inspired the illustrator.

[00:02:47] Also I was thinking that sliding glass doors not very energy efficient for a ski lodge.

[00:02:52] No not at all.

[00:02:53] If you're trying to keep it warm.

[00:02:54] Yeah.

[00:02:55] The tagline it was a perfect setting for murder.

[00:02:59] There's not a skiing in this ski weekend.

[00:03:02] No it's really a post ski weekend story.

[00:03:05] Yeah it really opens with us coming back from a ski weekend and has nothing to do with skiing.

[00:03:09] Yeah it's an interesting technique we're between two ski weekends potentially because it ends with a joke about let's go on another ski weekend.

[00:03:17] So I don't know if he's trying to make some kind of point about what a ski weekend is or it could be not.

[00:03:23] Or he just got the title and then just wrote a book and then realized they're not related.

[00:03:30] Well plot summary.

[00:03:32] Birds Eye View.

[00:03:33] We are following three friends and one new friend as they come back from a ski trip.

[00:03:38] Ariel is our narrator.

[00:03:39] She has her friends Doug and Shannon.

[00:03:42] Doug is a sort of macho douchey loose cannon.

[00:03:45] Shannon is his girlfriend.

[00:03:47] And Ariel and Doug are BFFs from preschool basically so they go way back and seldom forward it seems.

[00:03:54] Yeah and they also have red along with them who is someone they met at the ski lodge when Randy left early.

[00:04:02] I think red his name is red porter and of a feeling he was just looking at a beer sign and making up a name from working out.

[00:04:09] He's like I'm a red porter yeah probably.

[00:04:12] So we open when they're on their way back from their ski weekend and there's a really bad snow storm.

[00:04:17] There's a lot of traffic Doug is being a horrible driver and red says oh let's take this country road.

[00:04:23] I'm from around here and they always they always plow the county roads faster than the state highways which makes tons of sense.

[00:04:29] So they get driving road isn't plowed. They almost have an accident car breaks down.

[00:04:34] They walk up to this house on a hill which turns out to have been an old ski lodge that's now a house because country people are hospitable.

[00:04:42] They're greeted by the inauspiciously named Lou Hitchcock who welcomes them in.

[00:04:47] He has a younger wife named Ava.

[00:04:49] They are acting suspiciously.

[00:04:51] The gang at one point sees a guy in a blue ski mask and they think that something fishy is going on.

[00:04:57] They try to escape.

[00:04:58] There are loaded guns in the house so Doug takes one and shoots the person in the ski mask but it turns out the person was already dead and Lou, red and Ava are trying to get these three kids to take the fall for that murder.

[00:05:12] Yeah red was in on it the whole time he lured them out there to cover up this murder of his brother.

[00:05:18] Of Ava's brother and red.

[00:05:21] It turns out red and Ava are siblings and the dead guy Jake is also one of their siblings.

[00:05:26] And he was conning them out of their fortune at classic 80s and early 90s.

[00:05:30] I mean this is 1991 plot. We were very concerned in teen drama with people inheriting their fortunes.

[00:05:35] And the plate of people who didn't.

[00:05:37] Yeah poor porsels.

[00:05:39] I don't think you could pull this over on the what are they called after millennials, Gen Z.

[00:05:44] Zoomers?

[00:05:45] Yeah. Zoomers?

[00:05:46] That's what people are saying but yeah.

[00:05:48] Are they like boomers?

[00:05:50] I think because we're all in zoom right now people are like you know what's clever.

[00:05:54] Zoomers.

[00:05:55] It doesn't make sense.

[00:05:56] I don't think that you'd pull it over on the post we are the 99% crowd.

[00:06:00] Kids today probably would be less sympathetic to someone who is mad that they're not going to get all of this supreme wealth that was conned out of the workers.

[00:06:08] Yeah and good. I'm glad to see that plot go.

[00:06:11] The other plot that I want to see go is let's save the family business.

[00:06:14] We got to save the business so that I can have dad's business.

[00:06:17] Yeah why would you want a business?

[00:06:19] I don't know but it's terrible.

[00:06:21] It's supposed to be your classic sympathize with the protagonist.

[00:06:24] I don't think I care if this guy inherits his father's business.

[00:06:27] Well back to fear straight.

[00:06:29] There's some reason I couldn't think of the word ski masks where I wrote bala kawa which I don't think is the right term.

[00:06:35] They're the same thing though right?

[00:06:36] Oh are they okay then it was the right term.

[00:06:38] Yeah one is slightly more associated with political part of Zens and kidnappers and the other one is more associated with sports.

[00:06:44] Which one?

[00:06:45] The ski mask is more associated with sports.

[00:06:47] But like so I remember the first time I saw someone wearing a ski mask that wasn't in a movie.

[00:06:53] I was in college and it was like the first like real winter I'd ever experienced some walked in the dining hall wearing one

[00:06:58] I was like are you guys seeing this but it turns out when you're from the east coast it's not very unusual.

[00:07:02] You're a stan I feel like we're being robbed.

[00:07:04] They're gonna take all of the tofu.

[00:07:06] All right so let's get into the story.

[00:07:08] We open with Ariel our narrator talking about how Doug is being a really horrible driver.

[00:07:14] Like this is so stressful.

[00:07:16] A nightmare I hated this when I was in high school and boys would do this to show off.

[00:07:20] I've hated it in my 20s and into my 30s when boys do this to show off and it is bad driving or who decide just go one hand on the wheel

[00:07:29] I'm going fast and it's like I'm going fast in a snow storm.

[00:07:33] And I think the thing is they must know it doesn't impress anyone because everyone keeps asking them not to do it

[00:07:38] So I feel like it's less showing off and more I'm in control and I can scare you when I like that feeling.

[00:07:43] Yeah and that's clearly what Doug is getting out of it.

[00:07:45] I mean I don't think he's malicious I just think he's a douchebag.

[00:07:49] He likes to make other people afraid.

[00:07:51] So we also meet Shannon who is his girlfriend and her parents don't approve of Doug my notes you're saying no shit.

[00:07:57] Her parents also don't know that they did this ski weekend.

[00:08:00] Wait they don't?

[00:08:01] Yeah and they don't know that she's with Doug.

[00:08:04] I don't know what they think she's doing but they lied about this.

[00:08:08] And so part of the thing is this group of people plus red who we got who we got to in a sec

[00:08:14] they're trying to get back to shady side which is where Fear Street is set because Shannon doesn't want her parents to find out that this is what she's been doing.

[00:08:21] Right yeah I felt bad that my first Fear Street book didn't actually take us to Fear Street were in Vermont.

[00:08:27] Yeah it's Fear Street in Massachusetts.

[00:08:29] I don't know.

[00:08:30] Yeah I think it's lovecraft country.

[00:08:32] Looking at this book now knowing the twist ending, this scene for red must be so frustrating

[00:08:37] the whole time he's like bro I could drive for us.

[00:08:40] I'm good at driving and snow let me take over.

[00:08:43] And probably in his head he's like fuck this was supposed to be easy and now I'm going to get killed by this stupid teen driver who's going to drive us off the end of a cliff

[00:08:51] and I'm not going to be able to do my scheme.

[00:08:53] Yeah and we got to talk about this scheme at the end just because there seem to be a lot of moving parts to it.

[00:08:59] This is the luster of one of them.

[00:09:01] It's very slap dash.

[00:09:02] Yeah and so this is when we learned about red they met after Randy Ariel's boyfriend.

[00:09:08] Good name.

[00:09:09] Left in a huff because he wanted to leave early to watch the basketball game or to be in a basketball game.

[00:09:15] Watch on TV.

[00:09:17] Really?

[00:09:18] Yeah I thought it just said he left early for his basketball game.

[00:09:21] No I think it's to watch a basketball game on TV.

[00:09:23] That's so funny.

[00:09:24] And Ariel was like this is expensive we'd leave as a whole day of skiing.

[00:09:27] We don't want to drive back Sunday morning and he said like we'll find.

[00:09:31] Yeah I won't go.

[00:09:32] It turned into a screaming well he was with him.

[00:09:34] He's with them sorry I'm leaving.

[00:09:36] Yeah.

[00:09:37] Taking my ball and going home rather.

[00:09:38] Yeah going home to my ball.

[00:09:40] It turns into a screaming match and he flips over his chair and that's when red comes over and it's like hey hun.

[00:09:47] Ref day want to talk about it?

[00:09:49] Is everything okay?

[00:09:50] And he's from the area and he says he needs a ride to Brockton.

[00:09:54] I don't know why they are more than six hours away from where they need to get but.

[00:10:01] Because they're skiing.

[00:10:02] That's so far.

[00:10:03] People drive to go skiing yeah.

[00:10:04] Six hours?

[00:10:05] Yeah I think people who really like skiing are willing to travel to go there.

[00:10:09] Remember when we lived in Utah and people would fly there for the skiing?

[00:10:12] I guess so yeah.

[00:10:14] So they're gonna try to take him to Brockton but as a little sufflagged for us they don't actually make it.

[00:10:20] Although they do make it all over the goddamn road.

[00:10:22] Yeah they go into a tailspin and it turns out it's Doug's idea of a joke.

[00:10:27] For some reason it tries to calm them down by telling them that snow has more weight per volume than rain.

[00:10:35] And she says that she's a quote science freak and likes to distract people with scientific facts when she's feeling stressed.

[00:10:40] And she's feeling stressed a lot.

[00:10:42] She's a little bit neurotic and she imagines she hears the wind saying to her go back, go back.

[00:10:47] So she self describes as a few characters who've encountered so far do is having an overly active imagination

[00:10:54] that causes her to be constantly worrying.

[00:10:56] Yeah so much like our other YA female protagonist thus far she says she's quote good at scaring herself.

[00:11:02] The car goes over a bump and she imagines they're driving over a body.

[00:11:06] Yeah she's dark but also I think also very attuned to the real dangers around her.

[00:11:11] Yeah they're very much in danger primarily because Doug is putting them in danger.

[00:11:15] Red says look I remember this area if you just take this turn over here classic it's a shortcut.

[00:11:21] The county roads are always plowed before the state highways.

[00:11:25] Never do this also just don't drive in roads next to ravines which this road is.

[00:11:30] It's so stressful it didn't scare me when I was a kid now that I'm an adult like why do we build roads like this?

[00:11:35] Yeah no ravines thank you.

[00:11:37] Yeah and then so they go on this country road and then a truck is coming and it's a really narrow road.

[00:11:42] It's snowing so Doug's defensive driver I'm the one in charge of four people's lives.

[00:11:49] His response is stop and middle the road.

[00:11:53] Why are teens allowed to drive?

[00:11:55] I don't know especially this teen.

[00:11:57] Yeah luckily the truck swerves around them and they don't die and then the car gives out.

[00:12:03] He's doing the like squirrel move.

[00:12:06] Yeah just freeze yeah maybe won't see me.

[00:12:09] Yeah and they're they're trying the car but the engine is overheating and red says oh but there's a house nearby

[00:12:15] and they'll definitely put us up because country people are so hospitable not like quote city people.

[00:12:21] Much like when we talked about the scarecrow walks at midnight we've got sort of real America vibes here and throughout the book.

[00:12:27] Oh man we also have it mapped on to regional differences because we learn that Lou is from Alabama so it's not only that he's a rural person but he's a southern rural person.

[00:12:38] So extra scary to these possibly new Englanders suburban new Englanders.

[00:12:43] Yeah they can etiquette. I mean I don't know.

[00:12:47] Goose punks if you have an idea of what state fear street is in or if you have an argument for what state fear street is in I would love to hear it.

[00:12:54] But anyway they have prejudices and this is one of them.

[00:12:59] Red says let's just take our bags we'll leave the ski stuff.

[00:13:03] Oh don't lock the car because the locks will freeze.

[00:13:06] I mean it's good advice but also it's setting them up so that someone can take their car more easily.

[00:13:11] Yeah and they fall they fall right into it.

[00:13:14] They head up to that cabin and a man with scryly brown hair, a short beard, a red flannel shirt and patched baggy jeans.

[00:13:22] Fashion watch. It just sounds like he could be pretty grunge actually.

[00:13:26] Yeah very fashionable.

[00:13:28] He opens the door and says come on in folks.

[00:13:32] Goose punks Alyssa won't understand this but he's a real Tom Bombadill seamen type at first but that quickly goes south.

[00:13:39] He's a seamen type Tom Bombadill.

[00:13:42] You said he's a Tom Bombadill seamen type.

[00:13:45] Seeming.

[00:13:46] Seeming, Goddamn.

[00:13:49] Tom Bombadill seamen type I don't know what that would even be.

[00:13:55] In addition to fashion watch we have a real little slice of RL-stein love's architecture.

[00:14:01] So this is a gorgeous place.

[00:14:03] It was a ski lodge until they put the new highway in the area and then things have changed.

[00:14:08] So there's outsiders coming in and the ski lodges have moved but the place are staying.

[00:14:15] The former ski lodge has a cathedral ceiling which sounds cool.

[00:14:19] I don't know what it does.

[00:14:20] I bet it's high.

[00:14:21] Yeah.

[00:14:22] And possibly has a rose window.

[00:14:24] I guess you all have them on the ceiling.

[00:14:26] No.

[00:14:27] Skylight maybe.

[00:14:28] Yeah, maybe some flying buttresses.

[00:14:31] And yes it does have a glass skylight, stone fireplace and a second floor balcony.

[00:14:36] This place sounds beautiful.

[00:14:38] And a white shag area rug.

[00:14:40] Oh my God.

[00:14:41] If only it had a conversation pit I would be like let's move there.

[00:14:46] Yeah Ariel just hangs out on the shag area rug in front of the fire.

[00:14:49] Sounds great.

[00:14:50] Yeah that's how I want to live too.

[00:14:53] And so his name is Blue Hitchcock as a little sub pointed out not subtle.

[00:14:57] Yeah.

[00:14:58] I like the nod and his wife is Ava and this is indeed a very paranoid Hitchcockian story.

[00:15:04] Yeah and she looks younger than Lou about 25 or so.

[00:15:09] And Lou just keeps hitting on Shannon.

[00:15:11] He's like you're red hair just constantly.

[00:15:15] Yeah he is extremely creepy throughout but Ava is pretty rad.

[00:15:19] She shows up with coffee and banana bread right away.

[00:15:22] Yeah.

[00:15:23] Almost like she's been expecting them.

[00:15:25] Yeah my note says I don't think I'd want to leave.

[00:15:28] Yeah me neither until about five minutes later when you start to get to know Lou.

[00:15:33] Yes.

[00:15:34] So the phone is kind of working, they try calling home, they leave voice mails for their parents.

[00:15:38] Yeah and Ariel actually feels mad at her parents for not answering the phone.

[00:15:42] She feels like that she's been abandoned.

[00:15:44] And she also starts to worry that something may be happened to them so we get another example of how she always worries

[00:15:49] and things seem slightly off.

[00:15:50] She thinks the worst is possible which can come in handy and can also make your life harder.

[00:15:56] Yeah.

[00:15:57] Lou is sleeping through a gun magazine.

[00:15:59] He asks if they like to hunt and Doug says yeah I go with my dad.

[00:16:03] Doug points out the two deer heads mounted above the fire.

[00:16:05] They talk about what a real man's sport it is.

[00:16:07] Oh yeah and you know they're explicit about the Lou is hitting on Shannon all the time but Lou is hitting on Doug a lot too.

[00:16:13] He's like you think he can handle a gun and he can touch this gun.

[00:16:17] Are you strong enough for this gun and then later he'll be like complimenting his body and getting into a wrestling match with him.

[00:16:23] Like Lou just wants these young people.

[00:16:26] You didn't get that?

[00:16:28] I thought some of that was more about an open rivalry over Shannon and also demonstrating because you're here under my hospitality

[00:16:37] you can't do anything about the way I'm acting.

[00:16:40] Yeah I think he wants to dominate both of them.

[00:16:42] He's a very, yeah dominating personality for sure.

[00:16:45] Yeah including sexually.

[00:16:47] And then Lou shows off his guns not the gun show but the closet of loaded guns that he keeps.

[00:16:54] Yeah we find out after he hands one to Doug who starts aiming it around the room that it's loaded.

[00:17:00] Yeah this room just suddenly got terrifying.

[00:17:02] What if someone knocks something over and it kills someone?

[00:17:05] Yeah and then he tells them the story of Harve Dawkins who like to go out in the snow to hunt deer and then got shot.

[00:17:11] By some hunter and he guesses who?

[00:17:14] I'm presumably Lou.

[00:17:16] Very possibly Lou.

[00:17:17] We know he killed the deer's whose heads are on the wall.

[00:17:20] And red looks uncomfortable so I suppose it's also possible he was willing to shot him.

[00:17:23] Oh good point.

[00:17:25] Because I mean I was also wondering if him being like away for a while and now he's just coming back to the area which is what he tells them.

[00:17:32] I was wondering if that was like away in prison.

[00:17:34] Ooh interesting.

[00:17:36] Also Lou and red I mean we don't know how long they've known each other but maybe he's known red since he was a kid and maybe he raised him to hunt man.

[00:17:44] You know Harve was the first guy he got him to kill or something.

[00:17:48] Yeah I have to say at this point in the book I was expecting it to go in a like people hunting direction.

[00:17:52] Oh really?

[00:17:53] At this point in the book I thought that Lou was actually going to be fine and red was going to be the problem.

[00:17:59] And that they would just have been unfairly suspecting this alcoholic hairy guy.

[00:18:04] And in fact we have another like real America moment where Ariel is really uncomfortable around the guns and then she scolds herself and says you know or says to herself I must just be a snob.

[00:18:14] Exactly.

[00:18:16] The kitchen seems like a little sanctuary.

[00:18:18] It smells like apples and cinnamon.

[00:18:20] It has exposed rafters and an old fashioned range and a copper pot on the stove.

[00:18:26] It seems like a nice place to be.

[00:18:28] It really does.

[00:18:29] And that's where Ava is hanging out.

[00:18:31] She's very checked out.

[00:18:33] I want to get into Ava's character.

[00:18:34] I think we've seen this type a few times of wife who doesn't interfere.

[00:18:39] In fact we've seen it in all of Aralstein's YA books so far.

[00:18:43] Yeah.

[00:18:44] And so she's just checked out.

[00:18:45] She doesn't know where stuff is around the kitchen and that makes Ariel suspicious.

[00:18:49] Yeah.

[00:18:50] And Ava seems to clock this and says oh Lou never puts anything back in the same spot twice but Ariel still is all shaken.

[00:18:57] And further shaken when she thinks a gunshot goes off but it turns out it's a mouse trap.

[00:19:02] A very ominous mouse trap where she sees the mouse thrashing before it finally dies in the trap.

[00:19:08] Yeah and she thinks it's terrible to have stepped into a trap and walked into your own death.

[00:19:12] Doug made-

[00:19:13] What do you call that?

[00:19:14] Forshadowing?

[00:19:15] Yeah.

[00:19:16] Doug makes a joke out of it and says oh do you want to snack?

[00:19:19] You know he's holding it up.

[00:19:20] Which is the same joke Lou will later make.

[00:19:22] Yep.

[00:19:23] Lou is Doug's future.

[00:19:24] Yeah absolutely.

[00:19:25] And Aralstein makes that pretty explicit too which I appreciate it.

[00:19:28] Yeah for sure.

[00:19:29] It's just like in the baby's hair stuff that seems like harmless fun in a kid can become real bad over a few decades.

[00:19:35] Yeah absolutely.

[00:19:36] Lou is weirdly not bothered when a tree limb falls and breaks the porch roof.

[00:19:42] Doug has to be the macho guy he says oh let's move it.

[00:19:45] And as they go out Ariel notices that the jacket Lou puts on it has ski lift tickets on it and the sleeves are really too short for him.

[00:19:53] And she talks to Shannon who is clearly uncomfortable with Lou.

[00:19:57] And they're talking about how he's been drinking a lot.

[00:19:59] Yeah he keeps getting drunker and drunker and they hear him yelling at Doug for not following directions right when they're moving the tree limb.

[00:20:06] Lou comes back in and he is like you think this is snowed in?

[00:20:09] I was really snowed in one time with three beautiful women and he is telling this gross story with his wife right there and he's just staring at Shannon the whole time he says that.

[00:20:18] Yeah.

[00:20:19] So they eat chili after their banana bread.

[00:20:22] I'm failing to see the problem.

[00:20:24] Okay.

[00:20:25] And yeah they're eating chili banana bread and having coffee by a fireplace.

[00:20:30] And it's very tense.

[00:20:32] Yes I mean if you take out the social situation it's a very nice time.

[00:20:36] That's true.

[00:20:38] I like this you could like...

[00:20:40] I'd like to hear your argument that this book is actually about having a nice time.

[00:20:44] All you have to do is just keep your head down.

[00:20:47] Just recut the trailer like the one for the shining that turns it into a family friendly movie.

[00:20:52] Yeah.

[00:20:53] Lou also mentions that he hasn't been skiing in many years and in Ariel's remembering the skill of tickets on the jacket that he was wearing.

[00:20:59] Yeah he's having a trouble keeping his own cover together so they just go to bed

[00:21:05] and Ariel wakes up in the morning at night because she hears someone creeping around in the dark and having opened the front door.

[00:21:12] She looks out. She's pretty brave I think.

[00:21:15] And it's red and we get this thing that Aralstein keeps coming back to which he thinks that when a woman, a young woman, sees a young man act like a little boy.

[00:21:26] She's instantly romantically attracted to him.

[00:21:29] So it happens a few times this. Did you notice that?

[00:21:32] Yeah red brushes his hair back and looks like a little boy and she's like damn that's hot.

[00:21:36] Yeah and we've seen it in the other YA books too.

[00:21:40] Yeah something about maternal instinct getting mixed up with wanting someone.

[00:21:45] It's very strange.

[00:21:46] Whereas I feel it could be very obviously creepy if it was gender flipped,

[00:21:50] but like a guy thinking that it's really hot when this girl is acting like a little girl that's that's clearly pedophile territory.

[00:21:57] Right exactly and and vice versa that it keeps coming up in these books.

[00:22:01] Red comes into talk to her and he says my room is next to Lou and Ava's room and I heard them fighting and Lou is hitting Ava.

[00:22:07] And then he starts kissing her.

[00:22:08] Yeah red starts kissing Aral after saying that.

[00:22:11] It's like what give me a second to ponder what you just said.

[00:22:14] Yeah it's not that she's not into it, but she's like we should stop.

[00:22:17] This is our also our second YA book where it's a you've made out with the person who's endangering you.

[00:22:24] And then of course with Chuck it was there was some questionist whether he was endangering her.

[00:22:28] Besides being a horrible person and the babysitter.

[00:22:31] Yeah I mean it's effective horror right that you've let someone in that way.

[00:22:36] Who then turns out to be villainous.

[00:22:38] Next morning the last breakfast I'd ever want I don't trust Lou to make me breakfast.

[00:22:43] He's having a big old hangover breakfast of scramble eggs and bacon.

[00:22:48] Yeah don't trust him to cook meat products or things that might have salmonella in them exactly.

[00:22:54] Yeah nice time I turned a little at this and he says he's letting Ava sleep in as a treat.

[00:22:59] As though she's like working for him or something.

[00:23:02] Yeah so they want to get on the road and Lou is like no no no no I don't think that you should.

[00:23:06] I don't think that you can the roads aren't clear.

[00:23:09] Doug wants to go check on the car and I don't know why they all three decided to go and leave Shannon with Lou.

[00:23:16] Well they say Shannon do you want to go and she's like no I'm going to stay here.

[00:23:19] Why?

[00:23:20] I don't know maybe Ariel's view of Shannon as not being into Lou is incorrect.

[00:23:26] Maybe maybe maybe Shannon is actually like this is fine.

[00:23:29] Maybe Shannon is also somebody for whom the outdoors are so important that she'd rather be inside with Lou.

[00:23:35] Yeah that's possible.

[00:23:37] I actually could relate to that.

[00:23:39] And then Ariel is starting to suspect that Lou doesn't really want them to leave.

[00:23:43] They go outside their goofing around in the snow and then they realize the car is just gone.

[00:23:47] So they look around a bit and they find it in the bottom of a gorge.

[00:23:50] Yeah I thought that they were out of the mountains but I guess they found more.

[00:23:53] They found yeah more ravines.

[00:23:55] Ariel suspects Lou immediately but I think that would give him a heart attack pushing a car over a cliff by myself.

[00:24:01] Well drunk.

[00:24:02] Well drunk.

[00:24:03] It does seem like the kind of thing you do well drunk though.

[00:24:05] Yeah at this point I was suspecting red or even ava.

[00:24:09] But I mean we heard red come in move the night so.

[00:24:12] Yeah Ariel also notes that dog actually seems really scared rather than just being macho acting.

[00:24:17] So they go back to the house and Lou makes the exact same mouse trap joke.

[00:24:21] Oh and it's so bad this mouse was trapped the trap slammed on its middle and its insides are oozing out.

[00:24:27] Yeah it's really sad and also I think really effective horror building.

[00:24:31] Just like the deer heads on the wall we have dismemberment and gruesome death scenes.

[00:24:37] Well everything otherwise seems fine it's the horror of the everyday right.

[00:24:41] Yeah that gives you a sense that maybe the people who live here are okay with violence.

[00:24:47] Yeah and they are.

[00:24:48] And here's where the kids get really entitled so the lines are down Lou is really mad about it.

[00:24:53] They can't call a tow truck and they're like Lou drive us into town and you're jeep.

[00:24:57] And he's like it's not safe and they're like do it do it.

[00:25:00] Also he rips the phone out of the wall and like throws it.

[00:25:03] Yeah real jack torrents move.

[00:25:05] Yeah that was surprising.

[00:25:07] Yeah but I mean I think it's partly to be like the phone lines are down and no you can't check.

[00:25:11] Yeah that's true.

[00:25:12] Yeah and they're like oh but if you drive us into town we could rent a car in town and like who are these kids with car renting money in high school?

[00:25:19] Yeah also high schoolers can't rent cars.

[00:25:22] No maybe in 1991 they could.

[00:25:24] Well he makes fun of them and he's like why don't you kids go have a snowball fight and they're like oh okay good idea.

[00:25:30] Yeah he says I'll take you after I do a thing a few things first pack your stuff so they indeed do have a snowball fight.

[00:25:36] And he indeed has a snowmobile.

[00:25:38] Yeah which makes me think they probably could go into town.

[00:25:41] Yeah although he tells them it doesn't work and they believe him.

[00:25:45] So he says put your stuff in the jeep.

[00:25:47] Oh when he comes over and he's clearly got beer on his breath.

[00:25:49] Mm-hmm.

[00:25:50] Yeah the jeep has Alabama plates and then it won't start.

[00:25:54] Red is clearly a little bit concerned about Lou at this point possibly screwing up their plans.

[00:26:00] I mean it's not clear when you're reading this because you don't yet know the twist but looking back on this he's like Lou it's fuel injected.

[00:26:06] You don't need to push so hard on the gas and aerial notes that shouldn't you know how to drive his own car.

[00:26:12] Yeah I think it's red also trying to throw suspicion on Lou because that's sort of what the plan hinges on.

[00:26:18] Oh that makes sense yeah well jeep doesn't work supposedly and reds like oh I'll fix it.

[00:26:23] I wonder what he actually does this whole time well they're all inside because he's gone for hours pretending to fix the jeep.

[00:26:28] No no no it's like I'm gonna break from these high school kids.

[00:26:31] Just smoking up in the garage.

[00:26:33] Yeah so they go inside and I understand that Lou is getting irritated about them still being over or at least he's pretending to.

[00:26:41] He's like we're running out of food make your own sandwiches and he starts telling them about someone he knows who froze to death in his car.

[00:26:49] And at this point I was like maybe he drinks so much because he's known a lot of people who died.

[00:26:54] Like wouldn't he be the right age to have gone to know him how old is he?

[00:26:58] We don't get an exact answer but at least 25 years older than Ava and she's older than them so I would guess he's 50 at the youngest.

[00:27:07] Yeah so that could be maybe he's not very old but he's just lived a really hard life or he looks old because of all the drinking.

[00:27:13] Yeah well I think yeah it's all related.

[00:27:16] I don't know I guess I had a weird little bit of sympathy for Lou and whatever it is he's trying to escape from.

[00:27:21] Yeah at this point Ariel realizes she hasn't seen Ava and she goes up to Ava's room and sees Ava in a weird position and screams because she thinks she's dead but it turns out she sleeps with her eyes open.

[00:27:31] That's horrifying.

[00:27:32] Yeah that's the most horrifying thing in this book.

[00:27:35] Yeah and she also has a bruise on her face and one eye is swollen half-shot.

[00:27:39] She keeps saying to Ariel you shouldn't be here.

[00:27:42] Okay so if you're in a situation where someone is ominously saying you shouldn't be here and you're not sure if you mean in this room right now or in this house because someone's going to kill me it's a great time to ask for clarification.

[00:27:55] Conversely if you're trying to convey to someone that someone's going to kill them you could follow up that you shouldn't be here with a...

[00:28:02] He's specifically here in this house is what I mean.

[00:28:05] Yes because someone is going to kill you.

[00:28:08] Just fucking be clear or don't warn.

[00:28:10] Well I think that she's feeling two ways about it.

[00:28:13] I think she wants to feel like she did something but I think she also wants her money.

[00:28:18] I hate her.

[00:28:20] I didn't know I'd end up hating Ava so much but if you're having a moral quandary then just...

[00:28:26] What if you just do an ineffectual gesture to make yourself feel better?

[00:28:31] I know you love it when people do that Andy.

[00:28:34] Yes I do.

[00:28:35] That's right I forgot.

[00:28:36] Alright so the kids go play hearts and they're missing four cards from the deck and there's like we're playing hearts and then...

[00:28:43] Oh my gosh someone is staring at us in the window which I was kind of wondering how long was red just having to stand there before someone would notice that.

[00:28:50] They've played five rounds of hearts.

[00:28:52] I've been standing here I'm cold.

[00:28:54] Yeah.

[00:28:56] Yeah there's somebody outside in the blue ski mask staring at them.

[00:28:59] Frogging up the window and then...

[00:29:01] Just breathing out the glass just...

[00:29:05] And then probably drawing things and then the fogged up glass.

[00:29:08] Yeah like I kill you.

[00:29:11] Yeah it's an end deck.

[00:29:16] And then he just walks away and they're like oh no!

[00:29:19] Blue shows up and they're like oh there was a guy outside and he's like you're just snow blind I don't believe you.

[00:29:25] You're hallucinating.

[00:29:27] Then red comes in.

[00:29:29] They are not sure when he got in there and his face is red from the cold.

[00:29:32] Blue starts coming on to Doug.

[00:29:35] Yeah sizes him up says you have a nice build monster of a wrestling mask.

[00:29:38] He squeezes his biceps and he's like your wrestle?

[00:29:42] Yeah they just wrestle right there on the floor.

[00:29:45] Eva makes a gesture sort of makes noises about trying to stop them and then it's like whatever I'm going to the kitchen.

[00:29:50] Just repeatedly we see that he confuses violence with other kinds of passion.

[00:29:55] So Doug wins their match and then Blue won't let it go and keeps trying to wrestle him and gets really rough and ends up injuring Doug.

[00:30:03] Yeah for a second it seems like he broke his knee which really sucks because he's a high school wrestler probably trying to get a scholarship for something.

[00:30:09] Yeah and Ariel says oh let me examine it because we learned about knees for an exam last year.

[00:30:14] She really likes medicine.

[00:30:17] She wants me a doctor.

[00:30:18] She's a real scully.

[00:30:19] Yeah and she because again she learned about knees for an exam in high school.

[00:30:24] She determines it is just sprained.

[00:30:25] Oh good.

[00:30:26] God she knows.

[00:30:27] Yeah.

[00:30:28] And then red is like guys let's meet in Ariel's room in five minutes because I've got to tell you something.

[00:30:35] Yeah.

[00:30:36] Which I don't think they can assume there's any place they can go in this house where they won't be over her.

[00:30:40] But they do.

[00:30:41] It's a very open plan house.

[00:30:43] It's a ski lodge.

[00:30:44] Well that's why they go into her room.

[00:30:46] Yeah but are you saying this?

[00:30:48] This part.

[00:30:49] Yeah.

[00:30:50] The stage was first.

[00:30:51] Yes.

[00:30:52] And also in her room they're going to be over her too but okay so yeah they go up there and red says I overheard that Blue is going to rob us and leave us sit here with no way to escape.

[00:31:00] And he's going to pull out of the phone lines he's going to leave.

[00:31:03] And I thought Doug made a really interesting point here so Shannon says man how did Eva end up with that guy and Doug's like the same way you ended up with me.

[00:31:12] Yeah that's surprisingly perceptive.

[00:31:15] Yeah we're at a real turning point for Doug.

[00:31:18] And Shannon I feel like.

[00:31:19] Yeah well I think that if there's a happy ending to this story it's that maybe they it's like a scrooge situation and they see what they could become and they decide to change their ways.

[00:31:29] I like that.

[00:31:30] Red also says hang on I'm going to show you something and it comes back and shows them photos that he says he found in his dresser.

[00:31:37] And he says look at these people do you recognize them they don't.

[00:31:41] And he says these photos were taken down from elsewhere in the house.

[00:31:43] I think this isn't their house.

[00:31:45] And then he says so I lied when I said the Jeep was busted.

[00:31:48] I actually did fix it and I took the keys and when they're asleep we're going to escape in the Jeep.

[00:31:53] Yeah let's wait till Lou is good and drunk and then we'll go sneaky sneaky.

[00:31:58] And so they go head out in the middle of the night and stupidly the boys want to take guns.

[00:32:04] Yeah.

[00:32:05] Which then you're stealing and then he has a right to stand his ground and defend his house.

[00:32:09] This isn't Texas.

[00:32:10] Well I mean it is rural New England so yes you're right.

[00:32:13] It's close to New Hampshire.

[00:32:15] Yeah well and it's important that it's important that Red is the one who suggests that they take the gun and then Doug is just super into it.

[00:32:21] Yeah.

[00:32:22] So they go to the barn and they think Lou's in there with a gun and Doug pulls out the gun and shoots him.

[00:32:27] Oh my god this moment.

[00:32:29] So this is where I was like okay I'm actually scared now this is upsetting for many reasons.

[00:32:34] First of all Doug just immediately trigger finger shoots.

[00:32:37] Yeah he shouldn't have a gun.

[00:32:38] He should not have a gun but second of all this is you know what I was saying about Lou clearly has known a lot of people who died and that took his toxic masculinity sort of tendencies

[00:32:48] and then turned him into what he is now.

[00:32:50] Doug maybe this is first experience or something he's going to need to drink to forget.

[00:32:54] Yeah.

[00:32:55] Having killed a guy.

[00:32:56] I also part of me wonders if you really did ever go hunting with his dad or just being macho trying to show off exactly.

[00:33:02] And so he's pretending he could handle a gun and then consequences that he's probably not could be able to deal with maturely.

[00:33:09] Yeah.

[00:33:10] Luckily he gets out of it because he didn't actually kill the guy.

[00:33:13] Yeah.

[00:33:14] It's a great Lou pull and so I think he'll just be like well that's all fine.

[00:33:17] I don't have to learn anything from it.

[00:33:18] God I hope he sufficiently traumatized not to repress it but to ensure it doesn't happen in the future by changing.

[00:33:25] But yeah Doug's response at this point is just to not want to believe that he killed the guy.

[00:33:30] Yeah.

[00:33:31] They pull off the ski mask and they see it isn't Lou.

[00:33:33] And then Ariel realizes she recognizes this guy from the photographs.

[00:33:36] Whoops.

[00:33:38] Yep.

[00:33:39] And then Lou comes in and he starts freaking out.

[00:33:42] It's like you killed Jake.

[00:33:43] And at this point I was like oh my god this is such a good twist.

[00:33:46] They're the bad guys.

[00:33:47] Yeah.

[00:33:48] These teens are the bad guys.

[00:33:49] And I kind of wish I had just stayed that way.

[00:33:51] I do too yeah.

[00:33:52] They all just get arrested it's the end.

[00:33:53] Yeah.

[00:33:54] That actually would have been great.

[00:33:55] And he says this is Jake.

[00:33:56] This is Ava's brother.

[00:33:57] Ava's going to be so mad that you killed her brother.

[00:34:00] Then he's also mad that they were clearly going to steal his car.

[00:34:04] And Lou's like and you shot him with my gun.

[00:34:06] It's gonna make me look really bad.

[00:34:08] And so he wants to call the police and his like they also bring Jake's body into the house down to the cellar which didn't make any sense.

[00:34:17] That should have made Ariel suspicious.

[00:34:18] Well I can understand not wanting to leave your brother-in-law's body just dead in the garage.

[00:34:23] Yeah but crime scenes.

[00:34:24] Yes.

[00:34:25] I think this is a little before people were as knowledgeable about crime scene.

[00:34:30] Like the general public was as knowledgeable about how not to screw up a crime scene.

[00:34:34] I don't know that that's the case and I think that because what I think he's banking on them being shocked that Doug killed someone which works until they get into the house.

[00:34:44] And then Ariel starts to realize there wasn't there wasn't a lot of blood.

[00:34:48] Yeah and this is basically when they moved the body is when I was realizing oh yeah red isn't on it.

[00:34:52] Oh yeah my note says this is Vertigo isn't it?

[00:34:54] Is it?

[00:34:55] Yeah it is.

[00:34:56] Oh this is the plot of Vertigo.

[00:34:57] Is there a Lou in Vertigo?

[00:35:00] Kind of.

[00:35:01] A guy named Lou I mean.

[00:35:02] Oh there's not a guy named Lou.

[00:35:03] It was a guy named Hitrock and knew that one.

[00:35:05] Oh man good point good catch.

[00:35:08] Okay so that Ariel's great she's like there's not very much blood and so then after everyone goes up to bed she sneaks down to examine the body and she realizes this guy is frozen solid.

[00:35:21] He has been dead for a very long time.

[00:35:23] She does some good snooping and she goes up and tells everybody it was a setup we gots to go and they go to run away

[00:35:32] and then we find out that red wasn't on that.

[00:35:35] And it's really really well set up scene I think so the sun is just coming up after this horrifying night a big orange sun.

[00:35:42] The snow is sparkling like gold they have their long blue shadows in front of them as they head to the Jeep

[00:35:48] and then red pulls out a pistol.

[00:35:50] And he says sorry Lou and I worked hard to set this whole thing up I can't let you go now.

[00:35:55] My next note after that is this seems like it would have been a lot to plan.

[00:35:58] But it turns out it wasn't they just threw it to the other idea and didn't think it out and it happened to work.

[00:36:05] They're real I don't know like slapstick criminals I think.

[00:36:10] So he says I recruited you and I was one of this ski mask.

[00:36:14] Why are you telling us all the details I think he's proud.

[00:36:17] Ariel just has this feeling of self-discussed for having been attracted to the bad guy.

[00:36:21] Yeah it's not your fault yeah you could have some good qualities you were attracted to or we could have been lying to you.

[00:36:26] Yeah and you were attracted to the fake guy that he pretended to be.

[00:36:29] Also you could have just been attracted to him for his looks that's fine.

[00:36:32] Yeah you can just like bad people can be hot.

[00:36:35] You don't seem to judge Shannon for being with Doug so I think it's fine.

[00:36:37] Yeah so Lou comes out they're trying to figure out what to do.

[00:36:40] Lou also eludes to the fact that Ava was having trouble with the plan because she loves her brother

[00:36:45] and Red says he was my brother too.

[00:36:47] Yeah and there's another really nice literary moment in this scene.

[00:36:51] It's so well paced.

[00:36:53] We're suddenly a crow eases down onto the snow a few yards behind them and it's cawing and flapping its wings black against the white snow

[00:37:01] and Lou raises his pistol and goes pew pew pew.

[00:37:06] Like he's pretending to shoot the crow.

[00:37:09] It's just so creepy this to take this time and pause and to be so playful about killing things

[00:37:15] I just thought it was a really good character building moment.

[00:37:18] Yeah Ava shows up and says Jake was detestable stealing our inheritance cheating us out of what was rightfully ours

[00:37:24] but he didn't need to die.

[00:37:26] Thanks for explaining Ava.

[00:37:27] Yeah she says I called the police will be here in 20.

[00:37:30] She's definitely trying to set it up so that she was not to blame.

[00:37:34] Yeah exactly.

[00:37:35] I think she's going to pretend that it was just Red and Lou and that she had no part in it.

[00:37:39] She's like you'll give me immunity to testify right?

[00:37:41] Exactly.

[00:37:43] And then Ariel captures sight of their snowballs from earlier and knows they're probably icy now so she takes them and starts throwing them at Lou

[00:37:50] and people start following suit.

[00:37:51] Yeah good for her.

[00:37:52] She stuns Red so that he drops the gun and then Doug dives grabs the gun and then throws it.

[00:38:00] Yeah so yes he throws a little gun but this is better than him having the gun.

[00:38:06] It's an ego don't have the gun when you don't need it but when someone else is trying to get the gun keep it.

[00:38:12] Fair point fair point.

[00:38:13] Play people away.

[00:38:14] I wonder if he doesn't trust himself to be able to hold onto it.

[00:38:17] Yeah that's understandable.

[00:38:18] He's just recently thought he killed someone.

[00:38:20] Yeah so good that he doesn't want to kill another person but true.

[00:38:24] Yeah it was just the wrong moment to throw the gun because then someone else just gets it.

[00:38:28] Yeah he could've just taken the bullets out and thrown them in the snow or eaten them.

[00:38:33] I feel like that really would have stopped people but like what are you doing?

[00:38:38] Are we just thinking he's probably hungry?

[00:38:40] No I'm just thinking that then they can't get them.

[00:38:43] But it also probably would make them go with the fuck out.

[00:38:46] This guy is crazy we need to back away.

[00:38:48] It's probably bad if you just swallow bullets too.

[00:38:50] Yeah imagine them coming out the other end.

[00:38:52] Yeah and they might explode in you if you get too warm.

[00:38:55] I assume I don't really know how full it is.

[00:38:57] I assume it's like popcorn.

[00:39:00] So the police show up and Ariel oh my god it's such a it's so crazy.

[00:39:05] So first very action packed she jumps on the snowmobile and she's like come and chase me bitches.

[00:39:10] And then she flips over the snowmobile and she's like I'm gonna run and she goes running

[00:39:15] and Lew and Red are very successful I guess because they're like okay let's chase her.

[00:39:19] Yeah because the idea was then Shannon and Doug could run to the road and hopefully get the cops.

[00:39:24] Yeah and so she's riding on a frozen lake and she's trying to avoid the dark patches

[00:39:28] and they're chasing her and as Red is giving chase the ice breaks under him.

[00:39:32] And he's flailing for a bit screaming so she decides to go back and like help him but then he is sucked under the ice.

[00:39:39] Like those mice in the traps that took no pity on.

[00:39:43] And like Ava she can be like well I guess they tried to help him so it's fine.

[00:39:47] A little bit and then she realizes oh no the ice is cracking under me so she runs

[00:39:51] and she jumps into Doug's arms just in time.

[00:39:54] Yeah and then the police show up so Ava wasn't lying about that.

[00:39:57] And apparently the police are just like all right we trust you go on home you crazy kids.

[00:40:02] And then we get the classic RL Stein concluding chapter that starts with I can't believe we'll be home in time for dinner.

[00:40:09] Yeah I wonder what we're gonna have I hope it's not liver.

[00:40:12] Also they've been straight up missing for two days.

[00:40:15] They just didn't come home.

[00:40:17] Well I think they called their parents from the police station but I assume so but again 48 hours of fast

[00:40:22] since they last called their parents.

[00:40:24] They were supposed to be home on Sunday it's like Wednesday morning Tuesday morning.

[00:40:27] I mean I guess you'll always be home in time for for a dinner.

[00:40:30] That's true.

[00:40:31] Just maybe several days later.

[00:40:33] And and also they got the car back from the ravine.

[00:40:36] Yeah I guess it's a tough little plimeth.

[00:40:39] What's it plimeth?

[00:40:40] It's a plimeth.

[00:40:41] Yeah maybe.

[00:40:42] Uh and then they just named cars and I'm just like that information is not being retained.

[00:40:48] Well the final piece that makes us a perfect RL Stein repressing your feelings ending

[00:40:53] is it ends with dinner and a joke.

[00:40:56] So they're like what's for dinner and then Ariel's like what should we do next weekend?

[00:41:00] How about another ski trip and then Doug opens the glove compartment where he's been storing a snowball

[00:41:06] and while driving reaches back and just smushes it into Ariel's face.

[00:41:10] Which isn't that messing up your registration that everyone keeps that in the glove compartment.

[00:41:14] Yeah I think so.

[00:41:15] It seems like a bad place to put a snowball.

[00:41:17] Yeah it's also that's a lot of planning and keep your eyes on the road.

[00:41:22] Yeah also she could have easily dodged it.

[00:41:25] He's busy driving.

[00:41:26] Well we end on a note that you could read as sinister or late-hearted she says she vows to get her revenge at the next stop.

[00:41:33] Alright what taxonomies did you have here?

[00:41:36] So many.

[00:41:37] Okay so my first thought was snowed in slash lodge horror kind of two overlapping things.

[00:41:43] You can have a non-snowy lodge you know.

[00:41:45] What?

[00:41:46] You can be in snow without it being a lodge.

[00:41:48] Wow but in this one you get both.

[00:41:50] Oh nice.

[00:41:51] So there's lots of examples of this.

[00:41:53] Season two of Slasher was about a bunch of people being trapped at the lodge and you don't know who knows who secretly who has a past together, who's in cahoots and who's a psycho killer.

[00:42:04] I also thought of that game, that hyper realistic games with Hayden Pan is here in it until dawn.

[00:42:10] Do you remember that one?

[00:42:11] Yeah.

[00:42:12] Yeah so similar type of thing you're like these are all my friends here but what if then one of them's not my friends.

[00:42:17] You know.

[00:42:18] Yeah.

[00:42:19] The hateful age is another good example and I love these stories because so often they are about you take a small group of people and you get to know them really well or you think you do but then you find out that actually it wasn't just a happenstance you want meeting there and there's this larger story in these larger

[00:42:36] vengences and I really enjoyed that type of unraveling.

[00:42:40] I don't know.

[00:42:41] I assume you had something like this on your list too.

[00:42:43] Yeah and we've talked about Snow Horror before so was thinking similarly especially the snow bound frozen again not the Disney movie but the horror movie.

[00:42:54] The ski left one.

[00:42:55] Yeah and the shining of course so yeah.

[00:42:57] The lodge.

[00:42:58] The lodge which is so good.

[00:43:00] Well and the lodge brings up a interesting point so these stories are basically always about you think you know someone but once you can't get away from them.

[00:43:10] You find out you didn't actually know them or there they could hurt you yeah and that could mean someone else that is either a stranger or a friend that you're just stuck with or it could mean you yourself like in the lodge where being trapped makes her bad side come out.

[00:43:26] Yeah and all of her repressed drama.

[00:43:28] So one that I had that is related or can be related rather is the this is not your house slash they don't really live here which is I think doubly scary when you're stuck in a place with someone right.

[00:43:41] Yeah also because it's like nobody's driving the bus yeah yeah but the sort of classic like oh these photos don't match up with the people who say they live here.

[00:43:49] Maybe one of the classic examples of this is the system of Dr. Tarr and Professor Feather by Edgar Allan Poe where the you know the patients are running the asylum.

[00:43:57] There's the visit where it turns out those aren't really your grandparents and then there's estranged from 2015 which is about a woman who isn't a really bad accident that gives her memory loss and when she goes back to her home in Britain.

[00:44:12] Her family is acting really weird and it turns out they were the servants of her family and they killed her family and are like exacting their class revenge yes that movie was great and terrifying yeah I don't know that it was great but it was very upsetting.

[00:44:26] I remember liking it if I'm remembering the right movie yeah what do you think is the sort of specific horror of that type of subgenre of someone's claiming this is their house but it isn't.

[00:44:37] I think it can be related to this I'm trapped with someone I don't really know the place that is supposed to be safest isn't really I think also we could go back to Carol Clover who would I think read this in a sort of settler colonialist context right.

[00:44:51] Which is like you're claiming this is your land but this ain't really your land yeah I agree with that and I think two things one is really weird so I just suddenly remembered how piglet from Winnie the Pooh lives in a house that says trespassers will over top of it and the rest of the sign is missing and he claims like oh yeah this house has been I found for years that trespassers will he was my grandfather is short for trespassers William did piglet kill some people.

[00:45:18] And is he pretending it's his family home oh man he's hiding so much under that like oh shucks exterior yeah he's like I'm so bashful and shy but really this is a shy once you got to watch out for exactly so that just flashed into my mind we're describing this but also I guess I said this a little bit but I think there is something to this it's scary enough to be trapped in somebody's house and you don't know I mean they're comfortable with the territory and you're not and so they can find you are whatever but if they don't actually know their way around the house either it's suddenly.

[00:45:47] Oh there's no one who really knows what they're doing here it makes me feel like nobody's in control they don't really know the house that well they could do something wrong or maybe there's someone else here nobody's at the wheel.

[00:45:59] Exactly.

[00:46:00] Relatedly I actually had hospitality horror as one of mine.

[00:46:03] Yeah I thought a lot about the Odyssey.

[00:46:05] It's so interesting especially because in the Odyssey so sometimes you're scared of the people who are putting you up because they might be murderous

[00:46:13] or turn you into pigs or whatever in the Odyssey I mean but other times you're the problem because you're not being a good guest.

[00:46:22] Yeah and you sort of cause all the problems.

[00:46:24] Right so Odysseus sure when he goes to see the Cyclops the Cyclops is a man eater it seems but on the other hand the Cyclops didn't specifically do any harm to Odysseus

[00:46:37] and he just hides that in his place and blinds him and I actually forgot how the story goes exactly but no one blinded me.

[00:46:45] I know I remember that part I mean weren't they in there to steal sheep in the first place?

[00:46:49] I think so.

[00:46:50] Yeah so the kids in this story similarly they want to take advantage of their host they do steal things from their host they are violating a lot of the rules of hospitality too

[00:47:00] and so it's a you feel like they're going to get punished for it and b when it seems like Doug actually killed the host's brother and that they've just been falsely accusing him then it seems like they're actually the villains.

[00:47:13] Yeah yeah and also they now have to face the consequences of all of their suspicions.

[00:47:18] Yeah which I think is a cool side of hospitality horror of course another hospitality story is the one that gets referenced in here.

[00:47:26] Do you remember who Ariel's named after Ariel in the tempest?

[00:47:29] Yes exactly and the tempest is about these people who crash on an island and they think it's backstint but it's actually because the guy who runs the island caused a storm on purpose and traps them there.

[00:47:42] Oh yeah have you seen the tempest?

[00:47:44] Nope okay so that's what happens and his name's Prospero and he also has this spirit who works for him called Ariel.

[00:47:51] So what happened with him and Ariel? Ariel was trapped in a pine tree similar to the ski weekend and Prospero was like I will release you if you work for me for one year.

[00:48:01] And so Prospero is like this magician whatever but he really relies on Ariel's magic to be able to make anything happen and he doesn't want to let him out of his contract.

[00:48:10] So that's related to this in that Prospero slash Lou doesn't want Ariel to leave.

[00:48:18] The work is being a patty essentially.

[00:48:20] Yeah exactly so I thought that was a very canny shout out by Aral Stein.

[00:48:25] Yeah well actually Segway what I just said the patty was the last one I had again the obvious amlog being vertigo which is about Jimmy Stewart being set up to witness someone suicide who it turns out is already dead.

[00:48:39] Which I guess why it's Lou Hitchcock.

[00:48:41] Yeah I think that makes perfect sense and those are really scary stories because not only are you having to face the consequences of whatever you've been set up for but also you just realize how unknowing you are in your own life narrative.

[00:48:56] That's actually Prospero thing too. Prospero is always watching over all these people that he's fucking with and they don't see him literally watching above on the balcony looking down on all of them while his tricks are playing out.

[00:49:08] It's also a sort of related to conspiracy theories are real right. Yeah where it's like actually everyone is out to get you actually there are these forces you know marshaling against you in ways that you couldn't even have imagined.

[00:49:20] Exactly yeah for you are being just a guy always asshole.

[00:49:24] Gotta be a warrior. That's right.

[00:49:26] That's the lesson.

[00:49:27] Anxiety will save you.

[00:49:28] Yes repress a lot, worry a lot and then you'll sit you'll stay okay.

[00:49:33] Love Aral Stein. New Yorker.

[00:49:36] I had two other really quick things.

[00:49:40] One is country folk are scary.

[00:49:43] Yep rural horror.

[00:49:45] I've touched on a little bit but I was specifically thinking of this Lovecraft story, this Lovecraft story that I actually I think I read aloud to at one point the picture in the house.

[00:49:53] Yep that one's fucking gross.

[00:49:56] You know you go off road in the mischotonic valley and next thing you know you're at this house of this guy with this old tiny Yankee accent that you haven't heard anyone speak like that except in books and it turns out he's a cannibal.

[00:50:08] Yeah spoiler story.

[00:50:10] Spoiler for the 100 year old story.

[00:50:12] Yeah so I thought of that with the whole oh before the highway was put in this used to be the ski lodge it's like this things were different back when we could just have little cut off enclaves around the country that weren't connected and people could get up to all kinds of messed up stuff.

[00:50:25] With no one watching and then the other thing I thought of is this is the first we've gotten a bit of the CSI side of you're right genre yeah which I liked yeah same where she's like well okay let me use my knowledge and interest to figure something out.

[00:50:42] Exactly.

[00:50:43] Yeah I like to yeah and specifically using and it's and specifically using medical forensics to figure it out which for me that's not that's like the opposite of horror for me that is always the thing that you can

[00:50:54] take something horrifying and then you get to step back and intellectualize it and turn into a puzzle.

[00:50:59] All right oh there was one other thing I wanted to mention which is the whole patty thing and the being set up thing I thought a lot in this of the candy man murder

[00:51:10] Oh yeah he got like a young boy to go and recruit for him.

[00:51:15] Yeah so that is also something now that we've talked about read a bit more and like maybe he was playing that role for Lou right.

[00:51:23] He literally was he was recruiting people to be victims well and since it's a teen book for teens I think of red as essentially adult.

[00:51:32] Yeah but I guess if I was thinking like oh he's a 16 year old then I would be like oh he's probably being manipulated by this 50 year old and not as much to blame as him.

[00:51:41] And same same for Eva too yeah well she's in her 20s.

[00:51:45] Well the other thing is you know we're told that they're married but do you think they really are I have no idea because that's that was something that I kept waiting to happen which is when I was still in the sort of human hunting train as I get.

[00:51:57] When I was still thinking this might be a hunting humans type of scenario I thought maybe like Eva is somebody who was captured and like she showed up with a bunch of friends that's who had the sort of ski lift tickets on their jackets.

[00:52:12] And now he's like got his eyes on shenan and he's going to replace Eva.

[00:52:16] I wondered that too I wondered if why she was trepidation first is because he just likes to lure people in and kill them over and over and that's his goal.

[00:52:23] Yeah it's kind of glad it wasn't that because that's scarier yeah the human hunting train.

[00:52:28] Captain Melissa.

[00:52:30] Choo Choo.

[00:52:33] As I say what would you rate it?

[00:52:36] What about Shard Universe?

[00:52:37] But we don't have a Shard Universe.

[00:52:38] It's first true, it's Shard Universe but we don't know anything else about this universe.

[00:52:42] So what is there to compare it to?

[00:52:46] Well one thing I've noticed in in Arlesdine's YA horror is that if someone's hair color is notable they are an omen.

[00:52:57] Oh so snowman white blonde hair named after his hair stay away from him.

[00:53:03] Donnie bright blonde hair child of a murderer.

[00:53:07] What about Shannon?

[00:53:08] Shannon has normal hair.

[00:53:09] She has red hair it's commented on a lot but it's not red to the point that anyone would call her red for a name.

[00:53:15] Luke calls for that sometimes.

[00:53:16] Men with notable hair.

[00:53:19] Arlesdine doesn't trust him.

[00:53:21] I mean that's fair.

[00:53:22] So I noticed that I also noticed that high pitched laughs tend to be associated with bad guys.

[00:53:28] Also men with notable hair sounds like it's a short story in the New Yorker.

[00:53:32] Yeah, I really do.

[00:53:34] The other thing I was thinking about I guess as the thing that's tying all these YA books together is it seems like over and over again gender is horrifying.

[00:53:42] Is every Arlesdine YA book going to be about gender being a problem?

[00:53:46] Well so it's interesting because when we were picking our next non goose bumps book.

[00:53:49] I really wanted something that wasn't gonna be about a girl dating a weird guy and I forget what the other one we were down to but is this and cat.

[00:53:58] And and I was like okay ski weekend that's at least not gonna be about that but here it is.

[00:54:03] I know.

[00:54:04] So I guess next time we have to read something that is at least explicitly about a girl who is evil or dead.

[00:54:09] Yeah, I wonder if one of the cheerleader books maybe.

[00:54:11] Oh for sure.

[00:54:12] But I assume those will also be about gender being the problem.

[00:54:15] Probably.

[00:54:16] Or a problem.

[00:54:17] So it seems like the issues that come up in this one are trying to be macho can make you violent and dangerous cause problems for people.

[00:54:25] Being female means you're a target.

[00:54:27] It also can mean that you are complicit and sort of beaten down.

[00:54:32] In this book and in the babysitter and in the snowman so the three YA books we've read we have a wife character who doesn't like what her husband is doing but either tries to cover up for him or aids in a bet.

[00:54:44] Or looks as the other way yeah also that makes me think of stranger danger.

[00:54:49] So snowman is you know not from around these parts you know in this we have the meeting Lou and also meeting red right he's one that leads them there.

[00:54:57] The kind stranger which I actually wonder if it's a Ted Bell new reference because he you know he.

[00:55:04] He.

[00:55:05] He did I didn't remember that it was in college or maybe it's just a hotel but isn't Colorado yeah I'm sure yeah and then Jenny gets into the whole babysitting situation

[00:55:16] because she meets this random child at the mall and they've just moved in I think yeah don't trust strangers is he seems like it goes along with a lot of the themes in these books about also suspicion of regional difference yes and a lot of strong prejudices towards different regions in the country yeah which also like given the tradition that he's coming from as a writer makes a lot of sense like there's so much horror that's based on that.

[00:55:42] The only other thing I had was a theory is type of thing I think I possibly brought this up before so tell me to have but with Ariel being a warrior I was thinking a little bit about the psychodynamics of worry.

[00:55:53] According to Freud at least I mean there's different kinds of worry so you can have a worry about something that's real I'm going to fall off this road because it's slippery and we're not driving safely that's a very reasonable worry.

[00:56:06] And there's neurotic worries or neurotic anxieties which is when you have a conflict between your it and your ego so for example if you're like I have to only eat this amount of these exact foods or else my it's going to go out of control and I'll eat everything right so my ego's got to like and there's a conflict between those two so that's neuroses we love them.

[00:56:27] We live with them as much as Maria Bamford said as long as I keep the ice cube traceful no one will die.

[00:56:33] And then there's the moral anxiety and I think that's where she potentially is on the one hand she's right that a lot of people are out to get her and making her life dangerous on the other hand I think there's part of her that is angry and she turns that anger into worry.

[00:56:51] So they can psychopathology every day life which is like my favorite Freud book he talks about how people's subconscious makes itself known in the things that they think they do by mistake.

[00:57:03] You're like oh I accidentally walk down the wrong street but then it turns out it's the street of this guy who owes you money and you're like oh that's right I'll go see him about that.

[00:57:12] I'll go see him and if something should happen to him it's just just an accident.

[00:57:17] Right so similarly a say a mother who's always worrying about her baby might actually be annoyed at her baby and so worrying is a safe way of fantasizing about the baby shedding up or being shut up without her having to take responsibility for being the one to shut it up so she gets to fantasize about harm coming to her baby without feeling responsible for it.

[00:57:38] But I mean is there any worry that's not just a projection?

[00:57:41] Oh yeah I mean they are a projection because like you can also worry like what if my child gets sick or like I'm worried because there's a pandemic.

[00:57:49] Yeah and those would be objective fears right objective but sometimes you're worrying about things that could be objective but maybe your reasons are other than that right so I think you could use it to explain sometimes people's attraction to things like violent true crime.

[00:58:03] People personally attacked right now well I mean me too right but you know sometimes people are interested in those things because it's so lured and they want to hear all the lured details of the candy man killer or whatever but then it's safe to do that because the stories presented as and that was a bad man.

[00:58:19] And so you get to dwell in that evil and then judge him right and be in the position of of course I'm on the side of the every man who would never do that but you want to be in that headspace a little bit right yeah I guess it's not really where I see aerial though.

[00:58:32] So yes there's the objective worry about we're being driven by a terrible and reckless driver then there are things that are just being attuned to your environment and noticing when someone's actions don't match up to either their environment or their words so like for instance when he is putting on this jacket that's too small for him sure maybe that could have been ava's maybe she goes skiing but it would be weird for him to put on her too small jacket with her ski lift tickets on it when he could have just had his own coat.

[00:59:01] Yeah and I mean I agree with that I think she's hyper observant and that's something that kind of also makes her very worrier and attuned when you get things like her calling home to her parents her being angry that her parents aren't home her realizing that's not rational and then her immediately saying oh I'm so worried something bad happened to them I think that's an example of her going from anger and then turning it into fear for someone else.

[00:59:24] Yeah trying not to be angry because she is also she talks about how she had a screaming match with her boyfriend when they when they fought and she does feel bad about that so yeah she seems to be ashamed of her anger although I don't think it's the only thing that's driving her.

[00:59:38] No I don't think it's the only thing that's driving her either I think she's really complex psychologically but again like going over a bump and then picturing it to be a dead body as that was just an interesting moment too because it prefigures when dogs recklessness does cut someone's death.

[00:59:52] Right so her worries are I think a little bit driven by anger but also very on point in terms of what likely outcomes are there yeah like I can imagine maybe one thing she's angry about is dogs driving yeah and having to put her life in his hands mm-hmm and then she pictures some guy getting hit by a car.

[01:00:11] And she's like I feel better now taking control of the situation by imagining how bad it could be she's like let me tell you facts about snow and they're like we were not asking for facts about snow.

[01:00:23] She says but science makes me feel better yeah I'm going to list facts will be okay yeah well what did you think of this one I enjoyed it on a scale of one to five yes from yatiya although it's is it yes or is it A's right like no it's yeah

[01:00:40] okay so it's that there can be one to five a's in yeah yeah I would give it four a's in that yeah cool I thought it was good I had there are some real moments of being unsettled there were some times when it's like oh this could genuinely go a lot of ways that are scary

[01:00:59] I don't like being trapped places and I don't like being around people so this was horror for me how about you I would also give it for yeah I'd give it that many which is four yeah

[01:01:14] and I also I just like I was saying I thought that these characters are actually psychologically well developed despite how little screen time they each got I felt like I was talking to real people or looking at real people yeah and getting a real sense of the ways they're screwing up their lives and I liked that.

[01:01:32] What are we reading next week next week we're reading the barking ghost bark bark yes that's what the ghost will say yeah we'll say

[01:01:42] yeah bark and good bark good bark and looking forward to that but in the meantime goosebumps and fear streeters we want to know what you thought of the book ski weekend you can drop us a line at say pot and die at gmail.com

[01:02:01] you can also get in touch with us on social media on Twitter and Instagram at say pot and die and please leave us five yeah five a's not yeah yeah on apple podcasts and be sure to rate review and subscribe it helps us reach more goosebumps

[01:02:17] listen or beware those were the scares good book good bark good bark

[01:02:24] it's sorry I screamed I stammered it just that your eyes were wide open sometimes I sleep with my eyes open she said I could see a big red bruise on her right cheek the cheek was all swollen her right eye only opened halfway you shouldn't be here she said her voice of horse whisper what I wasn't sure I had heard her correctly you should be here she said a little more loudly a little more forcefully

[01:02:52] she didn't sound angry it was almost as if she were pleading with me you shouldn't be here what did I mean did she mean I shouldn't be in her bedroom or did she mean that the four of us shouldn't be in this house why did she look so frightened I had the feeling that she was trying to warn me