At long last, Andy and Alyssa wrap up Series 2000 with the final installment: Ghost in the Mirror. Along the way, they discuss interior design hot takes, monster twists, friendship reversals, scary furniture, splatterpunk, and more.
Follow @saypodanddie on Instagram, and get in touch at saypodanddie@gmail.com // Theme music by Haunted Corpose
[00:00:00] I stared in sick and horror as my face disappeared and his whole head turned inside out.
[00:00:07] And now I was gaping at the head of a hideous monster, a fat red tongue flopped out from
[00:00:13] the creature's pale wet skin, a red nose bulbous with three nostrils flapped loose from its
[00:00:19] face.
[00:00:20] The eyes were yellow, the size of tennis balls and bulged out from deep red sockets.
[00:00:25] No!
[00:00:26] I uttered a mone of horror and shanked back.
[00:00:28] The creature's body changed slowly, expanding in all directions, turning into a hard purple
[00:00:34] shell.
[00:00:35] The arms, my arms, slid into the monster's shiny wet skin.
[00:00:40] And enormous red claws poked out.
[00:00:42] Like giant crab claws, they stretched and clicked, clicked as it sharpening themselves.
[00:00:48] The whole creature glistened with sweat.
[00:00:50] The yellow tennis ball eyes rolled like fly eyes in the round red face.
[00:00:54] The crab claws raised themselves up from the purple hard shell body, clicking, snapping
[00:00:59] and clicking.
[00:01:00] I watched and stunned horror my freight changing to anger.
[00:01:04] You lied, I yelled, shaking my fist at the hideous creature in the mirror.
[00:01:08] You lied to me, you're not my ghost, you're a monster.
[00:01:13] Hello and welcome to Say Podcast and Die.
[00:01:19] It is a queer pop culture podcast where we talk about goosebumps and horror.
[00:01:24] And we haven't done a site.
[00:01:27] That's right, I'm Alyssa.
[00:01:29] I'm Andy.
[00:01:30] Do you want to talk about where we've been and what we've been doing?
[00:01:33] Well guys, we first read the book for this one back in March.
[00:01:39] So if you start by saying that, I'm excited to be surprised all over again by reading my
[00:01:43] own notes.
[00:01:44] I know.
[00:01:45] We have really tried, okay well let's walk it back.
[00:01:48] I quit being a professor.
[00:01:50] I thought it was boring and I didn't like it.
[00:01:53] And after being depressed about it for a while, I decided to apply to law school.
[00:01:58] So I spent the last year as a when-out.
[00:02:00] I don't know if any of you are familiar with the experience of being a when-out but it's
[00:02:04] terrible.
[00:02:05] Oh, and we had a baby who wasn't sleeping through the night.
[00:02:08] Yeah.
[00:02:09] She didn't sleep through the night until January.
[00:02:13] And I was, she's great but it was hard.
[00:02:15] She's epically amazing.
[00:02:17] I was lactating so I had to pump like six times a day.
[00:02:21] You?
[00:02:22] Yeah, I have a full-time job also outside of academia.
[00:02:25] You've gotten a couple promotions in it in the past year which means more and more work.
[00:02:29] Yeah.
[00:02:30] So time has been scarce.
[00:02:33] Oh, also we're having some sound quality issues today.
[00:02:36] Our microphone is on its last legs.
[00:02:38] Yeah, it was a surprise after several months to open it up and find out that it was sick
[00:02:44] of us.
[00:02:45] RIP.
[00:02:46] But it's like, remember in Beauty and the Beast where their life is so unnerving for a microphone
[00:02:51] who's not serving.
[00:02:52] Yeah, it's like the rose petals falling off.
[00:02:55] It's what our microphone is doing.
[00:02:56] Yeah, so we're dusting it off but it might be done so.
[00:03:01] So all that to say, we've been a little busy and we've missed you and we've missed doing
[00:03:05] this.
[00:03:06] But now we have full-time child care.
[00:03:07] It's amazing.
[00:03:08] I'm a too well.
[00:03:09] Hopefully you're going to keep your same position for a while.
[00:03:12] We're not moving to a new state.
[00:03:14] That's something else we did this past year.
[00:03:16] That's also where our sound quality has changed recently.
[00:03:18] You're hearing the dulcet sounds of New York City outside.
[00:03:21] Yeah, I think we told them that it's not quite the same.
[00:03:23] There's an elevator right by us.
[00:03:25] It's so odd.
[00:03:26] Yeah.
[00:03:27] I think we're moving again.
[00:03:28] But anyway, not to a new state, not even to a new city.
[00:03:30] We're sticking here.
[00:03:31] That's all right.
[00:03:32] Anyway, thank you guys.
[00:03:33] Thank you guys.
[00:03:34] It's been really exciting.
[00:03:35] Kiving up with the email when I've been able to dip in there.
[00:03:38] I did not pull up the emails for today but we've got some great emails.
[00:03:41] I'm looking forward to sharing with you all where Goose Punk's have written in, talking
[00:03:45] about the show, talking about their stories.
[00:03:48] And we've got new listeners and they don't even know that we went on hiatus for almost
[00:03:53] a year.
[00:03:54] Yeah, don't tell them.
[00:03:55] Okay, don't tell them.
[00:03:56] And we hope that you all, classic, excuse me, classic Goose Punk listeners pre-series
[00:04:01] 2000 original series listeners.
[00:04:03] Exactly.
[00:04:04] We'll continue to stick with us.
[00:04:05] We are going to finish Ghost in the Mirror.
[00:04:08] Oh my God.
[00:04:09] It took us so long to get to this last one.
[00:04:11] I think it might have taken us longer to do series 2000 than to do the original 63 books.
[00:04:16] Yeah, and then, well, I mean, we had a lot of energy during the pandemic before we had
[00:04:22] a baby.
[00:04:23] Yeah, that one.
[00:04:24] But then we're going to, I think, try our next book as some of our old stanza don't work.
[00:04:31] Yeah, we're going to do a wrap-up episode where we look back on the series 2000 as a whole.
[00:04:37] I am so excited, though, to dive into superstitious.
[00:04:40] The novel that I think made me gay, like just totally turned me off heterosexual sex.
[00:04:46] And he also found a TV series that ran in the 90s called Ungodly Goosebumps that we want
[00:04:50] to talk about.
[00:04:51] Yeah, I'm eager to do the TV show.
[00:04:53] I'm eager to get through some more of the stories.
[00:04:58] The goal right now is to do an episode a month maybe two if we're lucky.
[00:05:02] Just trying to be realistic because we still have kind of a lot going on.
[00:05:07] But hopefully things will start to settle out and we'll get into a routine with us.
[00:05:11] So without further ado, ghost of the mirror, the cover.
[00:05:15] It looks like the hand of maybe the werewolf from or the creature from Jackal and Heidi.
[00:05:23] And the mirror looks like a pool of water.
[00:05:27] And a dark room with a classic Tim Jackabyss assorted objects on table.
[00:05:32] Yeah, it's very cool.
[00:05:33] I also really like the color scheme with the very bright blue mirror and the faded
[00:05:38] washed out everything else.
[00:05:39] But also these green highlights.
[00:05:42] It's very cool.
[00:05:43] Yeah, it reminds me of the cover of Shrunken Head a lot.
[00:05:46] And this story reminds me a lot of let's get invisible.
[00:05:51] Of course, minus invisibility.
[00:05:53] It is 1999 because series 2000.
[00:05:56] That's where it stops.
[00:05:59] And did you notice the copy on archive.org where the book came from?
[00:06:05] This from the Austin Public Library.
[00:06:06] Oh, there we used to live right next to Austin.
[00:06:10] Oh, Austin.
[00:06:11] Speaking of archive.org, I wrote this note way back when I read the book.
[00:06:17] I guess at the time they were running sort of campaign to raise money.
[00:06:21] So if you like this podcast and want to support it, and you're able to give a few bucks
[00:06:25] to the internet archive in the way back machine because that's how we've been reading all
[00:06:28] these books lately.
[00:06:29] Yeah, they're useful for a lot of things.
[00:06:31] Okay.
[00:06:32] Andy, can you give the one-to-two sentence summary of this one?
[00:06:36] I don't really remember it.
[00:06:38] I'm about to find out with this.
[00:06:40] That's cute.
[00:06:41] Well my understanding is there's this mirror.
[00:06:44] It sucks people in and replaces them with monster people.
[00:06:49] And I think that's the plot.
[00:06:51] So kind of let's get invisible meats that go next door.
[00:06:56] Yeah, you don't remember it.
[00:06:58] No, it was.
[00:06:59] I'm just trying to think if there's a different Goosebumps book that really gets to the monster
[00:07:05] component because that was the biggest surprise to me as a recall was it not being a let's
[00:07:10] get visible situation totally.
[00:07:12] Right.
[00:07:13] I think we can expect that Robert Lawrence sat down with like fuck I have to write one more
[00:07:18] book.
[00:07:19] It's like okay, here's two that were successful.
[00:07:21] What could I add?
[00:07:22] Monster why not?
[00:07:23] You're already titled it goes to the mirror sir.
[00:07:25] Too bad because the picture on the cover has nothing to do with what happens in this story.
[00:07:30] Yeah.
[00:07:31] Alright, our main character Jason self-described Wim he has a classic annoying sister Claudia
[00:07:37] but this time it's an older sister.
[00:07:40] She has red and blue braces and likes to scare him.
[00:07:44] For example she made him think that a rat was living under his bed because she hid a dead
[00:07:48] rat under his bed.
[00:07:50] Yup.
[00:07:51] Oh Claudia stop where did you get a dead rat?
[00:07:54] I know right.
[00:07:55] Why did you pick it up?
[00:07:56] She also once puts spaghetti in his bed.
[00:07:59] That's kind of convenient.
[00:08:01] I'm like jokes on you, I guess spaghetti while I sleep and when the book opens she's accusing
[00:08:08] him of being vain because he can't walk past a mirror without checking himself out.
[00:08:13] Yeah.
[00:08:14] So we're getting back to bad sibling dynamic roots.
[00:08:17] We're also getting back to terriers in trouble.
[00:08:21] So we have a cute tiny terrier mutton named Busy and going into this I was feeling still
[00:08:27] not over the fate of the terrier and welcome to dead house so I was very nervous for Busy.
[00:08:33] It's same.
[00:08:35] Another thing that his sister likes to tease him about is that he has a quote unquote baby
[00:08:39] room because it's painted the same way it was when he was a baby and has the same furniture.
[00:08:43] Dude we're in a baby room right now.
[00:08:45] Yeah, we don't have a closet that is sizeable enough to accommodate podcasting so we're
[00:08:49] in a baby room.
[00:08:50] It's pretty small room.
[00:08:51] Yeah, it's got baby stuff in it.
[00:08:52] No baby though she's at daycare.
[00:08:54] Well I just could say this is like a very classic goosebumps theme of being in a time
[00:08:59] of transition from childhood to teenagerhood but not quite on either side of that line.
[00:09:03] He's got this light blue dresser he had since he was a baby and the little bed and he's
[00:09:08] tried to cover everything in wrestling posters.
[00:09:11] But his dad has been out of work for almost a year and his family can't afford new furniture
[00:09:15] another classic goosebumps theme.
[00:09:17] Yeah, very different from some of the more recent books we've seen.
[00:09:19] I know it went in this weird direction where it was trying to be all like oh it's like
[00:09:23] cool to be rich in the mid 90s so they had all these like I don't know Hollywood kids
[00:09:28] yeah I learned to fly that guy but now we're getting back to sort of the place of a
[00:09:34] night living dummy where they're like I guess you two are sharing your room because we
[00:09:38] are not planning on two kids and we already bought this house.
[00:09:41] And what's interesting about this is their mom actually intervenes in the fight and
[00:09:45] she says this is where she explains he has old furniture because they can't afford new
[00:09:50] stuff because their dad has been out of work for nearly a year and so again that we've
[00:09:54] seen a lot of parents ignore stuff like this so it was kind of refreshing to see that.
[00:10:00] So then we jumped to two weeks later when Jason is playing catch with his friend Fred.
[00:10:06] Is very uncoordinated and not athletic which will come into play later.
[00:10:10] And then mom and dad say we have a surprise for you they got him antique furniture including
[00:10:15] a mirror which he feels strangely drawn to this it's trying so hard you know yeah they're
[00:10:20] like okay you don't want baby stuff how about really old stuff he is like no masculinity
[00:10:26] stuff.
[00:10:27] And some other thing happened when I was in high school and I wanted a dicky's jacket so
[00:10:30] I could look like a cool emo kid.
[00:10:32] My parents got me a car heart coat so I looked like a you know horse tending kid.
[00:10:39] Yeah it's hard to be to know what your kid means yeah we also continue the theme of
[00:10:47] suspicious garage sale.
[00:10:49] The dresser drawers are stuck shut so it's not really a functional dresser but he does
[00:10:54] have it.
[00:10:55] He also feels like it makes the room feel bigger.
[00:10:58] Yeah we get some interior design tips as well.
[00:11:01] I don't know why a large dresser would make the room feel bigger.
[00:11:03] I think the mirror is what makes the room feel bigger.
[00:11:06] Oh gotcha.
[00:11:09] I think that that is a mislade I think it just looks tacky when you cover your room in
[00:11:13] mirrors but it's one mirror he's not covering his room in mirrors.
[00:11:17] Okay well the important thing is hot takes from Andy.
[00:11:21] One thing that's very dangerous in our all-stimes universe is stuff made out of trees.
[00:11:26] True.
[00:11:27] Think about slappy, think about Mr. Wood, think about actual trees that have been dangerous.
[00:11:31] Yes you have some kind of trees you know trees houses, houses made out of redwoods.
[00:11:37] Well here we've got furniture made out of trees instead of good old fashioned plastic.
[00:11:41] This is our problem.
[00:11:43] Well then we come to what I think is one of the most endearing jovial bob moments of
[00:11:48] all time when RL Stein thinks he has to explain to his audience of 98 girls what video
[00:11:55] basketball is.
[00:11:57] What is video basketball?
[00:11:58] Well they sit down to play a video game and the joke is Fred so uncoordinated he can't
[00:12:02] even play video basketball on their Nintendo or whatever.
[00:12:05] Do you call it video basketball?
[00:12:07] They call it that in the game.
[00:12:08] Huh I feel like this is a mummy case where you're like our taco chips or basketball
[00:12:13] video game whatever but I think I know it's an basketball video game and I'm pretty
[00:12:17] sure you called it like video basketball or something.
[00:12:18] No that sounds right because I have NBA video game in my notes we don't remember.
[00:12:24] Anyway he explains it so as they're playing Fred gets distracted by the mirror which
[00:12:30] I thought was a nice touch the mirror looks brighter and clearer than reality which is
[00:12:35] part of what draws him to it kind of like wwf which he's also into better than reality
[00:12:41] Is it better than reality?
[00:12:42] Well I mean I think it's supposed to be a side they like choreograph the fights you
[00:12:46] later Fred goes home Jason eats Oreos and Coke like we did for the entire like year
[00:12:51] last year yeah very relatable.
[00:12:56] So then but after that Jason goes back to his room and finds a note beware bring this
[00:13:00] into your house and you bring death.
[00:13:02] And the note is yellowed and stained too little too late but at this point did you know
[00:13:07] what the twist would be?
[00:13:08] No I was assuming it was Claudia because I was like fuck it if I have to read 10 chapters
[00:13:15] of there's something bad but we have to spend 10 chapters dealing with Claudia I'm
[00:13:20] gonna be so mad and I was actually very pleasantly surprised that it wasn't.
[00:13:25] Well I think this is the first time in our entire relationship where I have picked up on
[00:13:30] a twist before you because the dresser left the note?
[00:13:34] Yeah oh yeah you figured that out.
[00:13:36] No no no I definitely thought it was Claudia.
[00:13:37] Oh wow well Claudia didn't do it but she tries to scare him and be like oh there's something
[00:13:43] moving in the mirror and then he knocks over his Coke and makes a big mess.
[00:13:47] Because it's the 90s and there's walled wall carpeting.
[00:13:50] And then I have as my next heading Buzzy frowny face.
[00:13:54] No.
[00:13:55] So Jason's relating this to Fred and he's starting to think Claudia actually didn't write
[00:13:59] it they're playing soccer and apparently Jason told Fred that he should join the intramural
[00:14:05] team because there are lots of bad players but for some reason that doesn't sell Fred
[00:14:08] on playing soccer so they hear Buzzy barking which Jason thinks is unusual even though
[00:14:13] Buzzy is a terrier.
[00:14:16] And he's barking at the mirror.
[00:14:18] If he's like our dog he's barking at himself but Jason's freaked out by this.
[00:14:22] And mom and dad just laughed when he tries to tell them they're in a great mood because
[00:14:26] dad got hired for a job 20 minutes away which is quite a detail to deliver.
[00:14:31] You know how kids really appreciate it.
[00:14:33] Good time.
[00:14:34] Yeah but it's great dad's got a job and Claudia is really glad because it turns out she's
[00:14:39] popular and didn't want to move.
[00:14:42] She denies writing the note but she says she did write a short story in school called
[00:14:46] The Haunted Mirror about a girl who died 100 years ago and haunts the mirror and then
[00:14:50] a new boy gets it.
[00:14:52] And yeah gets possessed and mom and dad say sounds good very imaginative.
[00:14:57] And I was like Arles Dine is this a compliment to yourself being the writer of such a story?
[00:15:04] This is another moment where I was dreading like she's going to be doing this whole hoax
[00:15:08] of this 100 year old girl.
[00:15:10] I mean that would have been kind of cool.
[00:15:13] What did it have?
[00:15:14] Yeah like in a like what a manipulative scary sibling.
[00:15:19] That's true but also I want to point out food watch.
[00:15:22] We've got fried chicken and mashed potatoes and I also want to point out that in many ways
[00:15:28] Claudia is probably a lot like kid Arles Dine was picking on siblings writing creepy stories
[00:15:34] for English class wearing glasses eating mashed potatoes.
[00:15:38] Baby popular I don't know.
[00:15:40] I assume a little popular.
[00:15:42] Well then they hear growling and they find Busy in front of the mirror again.
[00:15:45] Jason goes to comfort him but then gets bitten.
[00:15:47] On the neck, Busy's eyes are glowing and he leaps up and bites Jason on the neck and
[00:15:52] draws blood.
[00:15:53] This is extreme even for a terrier.
[00:15:56] Then their dad says I'll take the dog away and I got super worried for Busy.
[00:16:00] Me too.
[00:16:01] And Claudia just thinks this is so cool.
[00:16:04] What a scary situation.
[00:16:07] After Jason's playing games with Fred again and they look in the mirror and see Busy's
[00:16:11] reflection but with no Busy because Busy is in the garage.
[00:16:14] Both of them see it?
[00:16:16] Yeah.
[00:16:17] And then they call Claudia in but it vanishes for her.
[00:16:21] And also for a minute there Jason is afraid that he is going to get rabies but I just had
[00:16:27] a thought about that you know the like trope of people like I thought quicks and was
[00:16:31] going to come up more often than it did.
[00:16:35] But whereas quicksand was simply not really the thing that we were led to believe it
[00:16:42] was.
[00:16:43] I wonder if there was an era where children needed to be a lot more worried about rabies?
[00:16:46] Yeah probably the era where dogs were just like roaming in the streets.
[00:16:48] Yeah and didn't have vaccines for that.
[00:16:52] So going downstairs, getting coaxed for that dog Fred has gone.
[00:16:55] Yeah he comes back to his room where he left Fred but Fred is gone.
[00:16:59] No one has seen him, his parents are like, don't worry about it.
[00:17:03] Why are you watching the old Hitchcock movie with us?
[00:17:06] Which Hitchcock movie do you think they were watching?
[00:17:08] Vertigo maybe?
[00:17:09] By Vertigo.
[00:17:10] Because it's about weird doubles.
[00:17:13] What did you think it was?
[00:17:15] I just am coming up all rope just because there's two kids, people going mysteriously missing
[00:17:21] but I don't really know.
[00:17:22] I have to think about it more.
[00:17:24] Maybe when we recap what actually happened in this.
[00:17:27] No people know.
[00:17:29] Hello Claudia then does a jump scare and a rubber Halloween mask play in the greatest hits.
[00:17:33] We're doing a lot less like ending on a cliff hanger chapters I know this especially ones
[00:17:38] that try to be fake out.
[00:17:40] Yeah after Jason goes to sleep or he gets in bed, he hears whimpering coming from inside
[00:17:44] the mirror.
[00:17:46] And then the next day he sees Fred at school and Fred's like, why I just went home.
[00:17:50] And then they go out to the middle school playground and have ever seen a middle school playground?
[00:17:55] It might be attached to an elementary school that has a playground.
[00:17:58] Maybe.
[00:17:59] I don't think middle schools have playgrounds, maybe basketball courts.
[00:18:02] Our middle school was attached to an elementary school so we sometimes go to PE out there.
[00:18:07] Well Fred is suddenly good at sports and everyone says you're possessed totally possessed.
[00:18:14] Not everyone.
[00:18:15] Jason says in a way that he thinks it's a compliment, you're totally possessed and then
[00:18:19] Fred gets mad and starts punching him.
[00:18:21] Yeah.
[00:18:22] Jason's had a rough time.
[00:18:23] Yeah.
[00:18:24] To be fair he has been kind of nicking him.
[00:18:27] Again, punching is not an appropriate response but Jason's like, I don't understand
[00:18:30] what he could be mad at me.
[00:18:31] He's like, hmm.
[00:18:32] Yeah maybe because you make fun of him about sports all the time when you're also not good
[00:18:36] at sports.
[00:18:37] But it will say friendship reversals happen around this age and are very painful and
[00:18:41] you're like, oh I thought we were friends but now we've diverged routes a lot my so-called
[00:18:46] life.
[00:18:47] So Jason got punched and stuff and he gets sent home early and Fred gets suspended.
[00:18:54] I think someone should be watching him probably if he's feeling sick after getting punched
[00:18:58] in the face.
[00:18:59] Yeah.
[00:19:00] Yeah.
[00:19:01] I mean it says, once again I pictured Fred pounding me.
[00:19:06] Pounding me.
[00:19:08] So yeah it gets a little gay.
[00:19:10] I mean it's wrestling.
[00:19:12] He's clearly into thinking about dude done dudes and good for him.
[00:19:18] At home Jason looks in the mirror and sees two shadows.
[00:19:21] Busy and Fred and he's very afraid.
[00:19:24] In that night he hears breathing from the mirror and it's kind of this black mirror if you
[00:19:31] will.
[00:19:32] It's turned black, it's not reflecting anything.
[00:19:35] I don't know why he decides to then press his hand against the mirror but he does like
[00:19:40] he's never seen you know, Alice in Wonderland adaptation and then he Fred forms out of
[00:19:48] the darkness and pulls him towards the mirror.
[00:19:52] Well he wakes up, it's a dream maybe.
[00:19:56] And he scratches on his arm.
[00:19:58] Then he looks at the mirror there's a figure and it says I am your ghost.
[00:20:02] Well and also here we get very Freudian so the mirror is a dark hole with a black tunnel
[00:20:09] leading.
[00:20:10] What could it mean?
[00:20:11] Well Rama housing his baby room.
[00:20:13] I think he's afraid of being dragged back when he came into this womb haunted by his
[00:20:17] former baby status from when he was nothing.
[00:20:21] Speaking of being nothing, so the figure says I am your ghost you died of fright last
[00:20:28] night and so now you need to come into the mirror.
[00:20:32] He feels hypnotically drawn to the mirror and the ghost grips him and he hears Busy
[00:20:37] barking from far away and jerks himself free and the ghost roars and says get in here and
[00:20:42] then we get some very excellent body horror.
[00:20:46] Yeah things really took a turn in a way that I really enjoyed.
[00:20:49] Up to this point I was not super impressed and then the figure was.
[00:20:53] Yeah the figure's mouth opens and it turns inside out.
[00:20:57] It's like, oh that's notice it's some kind of red monster exclamation point because
[00:21:01] I'm a child.
[00:21:02] Yeah I put red body horror.
[00:21:04] His mouth opens wider and wider and then flaps back over his head and squalus his face
[00:21:09] and it tongue flops out.
[00:21:11] A red nose with three nostrils, eyes asides of tennis balls and a purple shell with giant
[00:21:16] crab claws which is why I say the cover is a little misleading but that's an unexpected
[00:21:21] monster.
[00:21:22] Yeah crab claws.
[00:21:23] Very much so and it tries to pull him in Jason's grabbing frantically for something and saying
[00:21:30] you lied.
[00:21:31] Yeah that's pretty not the biggest issue here.
[00:21:35] The only thing he can grab on his way and is a small hand mirror really nothing he does
[00:21:41] like affects the creature and the creature says I'll be replacing you.
[00:21:46] And so Jason decides to hold up the mirror, his one weapon that he was able to grab and
[00:21:51] it makes even more monsters and he backs up and falls out of the mirror and very luckily
[00:21:57] watches all the other monsters in the mirror attack each other.
[00:22:00] That's really fucking cool.
[00:22:01] Yeah, that's like something out of how-zo.
[00:22:04] This very trippy version of horror where yeah he makes the monsters multiply by reflecting
[00:22:10] them back and forth in the mirror.
[00:22:11] I don't totally, I can't totally picture how this setup works but I love the idea.
[00:22:17] Yeah, again my next note it's very gruesome.
[00:22:19] Brad.
[00:22:21] And he sees all the monsters attacking each other in the mirror and he runs calling for his
[00:22:25] parents, tries to show them and then you know the classic horror thing that nothing there
[00:22:31] anymore.
[00:22:32] And dad says let's call Dr. Flesin.
[00:22:34] I Google Dr. Flesin, psych professor who specializes in personality psychology William Flesin.
[00:22:41] Ah yeah they also do the thing of debating what's wrong with him while standing in front
[00:22:45] of him but we still don't get to go to a frickin therapist.
[00:22:48] No.
[00:22:49] So the next morning it's very awkward but then they realize that there is a hole in the
[00:22:54] garage.
[00:22:55] Buzzzie has basically chewed through it and is gone.
[00:22:57] Jason's very upset he starts biking, he's following you know following the trail and
[00:23:02] he finds Fred holding a car above his head.
[00:23:06] Yeah, his house is completely wrecked and he's growling and his eyes are glowing like
[00:23:10] a demons.
[00:23:11] And this is when the penny drops that it's not really Fred.
[00:23:15] That's why he's so good at sports.
[00:23:18] And then the police pull up with guns and he just bikes away.
[00:23:22] He goes to school.
[00:23:23] Yeah.
[00:23:24] We just leave that there.
[00:23:25] Well, there's no like nobody is bothered after this about a middle school child picking
[00:23:31] a car up over his head.
[00:23:32] Well, I think the police probably are.
[00:23:34] I think something goes down there but Jason's like I don't think I can provide anything
[00:23:38] to this situation nor am I going to get in the way of or in between my friend and danger.
[00:23:44] Yeah.
[00:23:45] So let me cut to that night.
[00:23:46] Apparently he had a normal school to except for feeling a little nervous.
[00:23:50] But he gets a little bit of conviction and thinks I should go rescue the real Fred and
[00:23:54] Buzzzie.
[00:23:55] He stares into the mirror and it starts to cloud over and become porous.
[00:24:01] And I wonder why?
[00:24:02] Is it just is the mirror possessed and conscious in some way and full of demons of the demons
[00:24:08] come up with some technology that allows them to move through this mirror but only if
[00:24:13] someone's looking long enough?
[00:24:16] Yeah, it almost like has to sort of welcome someone in in some way.
[00:24:20] But only sometimes.
[00:24:21] And on a metaphorical level is the idea that if you stare too long into your own reflection
[00:24:27] also what I thought you were saying.
[00:24:29] Were you thinking the abyss?
[00:24:30] I was thinking vagina because you brought it up earlier.
[00:24:32] Oh right.
[00:24:33] Well if you stare too long into yourself, your complex origins, it's like you start to
[00:24:39] become estranged to yourself.
[00:24:43] Maybe lose yourself.
[00:24:44] Yeah.
[00:24:46] He goes in the mirror, he takes a step and then falls through the floor, lands hard
[00:24:51] and then he wakes up to hundreds of mirrors for this there and so is the real Buzzzie.
[00:24:56] It's like a fun house and he tries to punch Fred.
[00:25:00] Yeah, because he doesn't think it's really Fred.
[00:25:02] So he tries to punch him and this Fred is unscared.
[00:25:05] He's like, oh no, punching and then he's like cool, you're Fred.
[00:25:11] Because being a whim is something that's perfectly fine to be in the goose first.
[00:25:15] What many of the best characters are?
[00:25:18] Apparently Jason feels very secure having a whim sidekick friend.
[00:25:23] So they're able to move the panes of glass, they find a path and it's getting colder
[00:25:29] and colder as we're reminding me again of the cold place from Let's Get Invisible.
[00:25:34] And we're kind of somewhere between us and 2001 a space out of sea as he's going through
[00:25:40] this trippy maze that seems to move between different laws of physics too.
[00:25:47] It's not unlike that scene from Captain the Woods where they're seeing all the different
[00:25:52] creatures.
[00:25:53] And he goes through this tunnel that seems lit by a million crystals which is less like
[00:25:57] most vaginas.
[00:26:00] Most but not all, I don't know.
[00:26:02] It's on the night of the minbidazzles.
[00:26:06] Well they find the correct mirror and they see Claudia and they're trying to get her attention.
[00:26:11] She doesn't see them but she does take his game boy without his permission.
[00:26:15] That's so rude.
[00:26:16] I know.
[00:26:17] My mother did that.
[00:26:18] I think a lot of siblings do that.
[00:26:20] He didn't recently.
[00:26:23] He's a game boy color.
[00:26:25] I think he might still have it.
[00:26:27] Well if you're listening, Goosebumps.
[00:26:31] You can keep it.
[00:26:32] I think I might have said that to at some point but I might want to borrow it again in
[00:26:35] case I need to get back into Pokemon Blue.
[00:26:38] Okay so he pulls out his little mirror.
[00:26:41] He uses it to make two threads and three then five but all of these threads are not strong
[00:26:47] enough to slide the mirror open.
[00:26:49] And then Fred says 100 threads couldn't break through this thing.
[00:26:54] Just really like they referred to himself in the third person.
[00:26:57] Also the other threads just walk off and disappear and I would think original Fred would
[00:27:01] be concerned about them but he is not.
[00:27:04] No, I think he's been through a lot.
[00:27:07] Are these doubles not fully formed human beings?
[00:27:10] They must not be.
[00:27:11] They must be some sort of stuff.
[00:27:13] Yeah.
[00:27:14] Well then Jason aims his little handheld mirror at the glass which melts it.
[00:27:22] Something like that.
[00:27:23] It sizzles a hole opens and they walk out into his room.
[00:27:27] And then they run into Jason's doppelganger.
[00:27:31] The monster doesn't seem to care that they've escaped the mirror.
[00:27:34] He knows he's stronger.
[00:27:36] And then Jason holds up the little mirror and he's like get that out of my way.
[00:27:39] He slaps it out of his hands with his crab hands.
[00:27:42] And then Jason rips his eyes out.
[00:27:45] Shows it in the mirror.
[00:27:48] It's a real Odysseus move actually.
[00:27:50] That's some polyphemus call out here.
[00:27:53] Yeah and then he smashes the mirror.
[00:27:56] Good look.
[00:27:57] Even though his mom sees him do it.
[00:27:59] And he says it's over.
[00:28:00] I'm okay now which again just now is apparent thinking about walking in here and seeing
[00:28:05] our little goose punk do that.
[00:28:07] And she's like don't worry about it.
[00:28:09] Because their mom agrees.
[00:28:11] Yeah let's just memory hole all of this it never happened.
[00:28:13] I mean, I feel like if I walked in here and saw baby goose punk smash one of her mirrors
[00:28:18] with a lamp and say it's okay now.
[00:28:20] I'd be like good.
[00:28:21] It's okay now.
[00:28:22] Let's clean this up.
[00:28:23] I'm glad you took care of whatever that was.
[00:28:27] So you're saying this mom did the right thing?
[00:28:29] I think so.
[00:28:30] If the kid feels safe.
[00:28:33] I mean, I think the difference is our goose punk is one and a half.
[00:28:38] I say, you know, also get your kid to therapy probably goose parents.
[00:28:44] But I think they're probably really busy.
[00:28:47] Well yeah, so they clean everything up.
[00:28:50] We have no idea the status of you know monster busy and monster Fred doesn't matter.
[00:28:56] But then we get our last punch line which is the dresser door opens and a furry brown snake
[00:29:02] thing pokes out its head and says did you get my note?
[00:29:05] Okay.
[00:29:06] So it's your reaction to after everything we've seen here and all the masculinity issues
[00:29:11] our protagonist is dealing with a furry snake popping its head out.
[00:29:16] Seems like there's going to be a journey of self-discovery ahead.
[00:29:21] It has a furry tongue and this is oh, this is where I thought Hitchcock maybe came
[00:29:27] in because he's always putting like, oh, the train's entering a tunnel.
[00:29:31] Oh yeah.
[00:29:32] I was looking and like, you know just very obvious phallic metaphors and stuff.
[00:29:37] So I thought maybe that's what the Hitchcock reference was about rather than a specific
[00:29:41] movie.
[00:29:43] Anyway, just when he got rid of babyhood here comes adolescence.
[00:29:47] What did it say to it say it was evil?
[00:29:50] It said beware bring this into your house and you bring death.
[00:29:55] So didn't say evil just said death.
[00:29:57] I guess that's fair because being born and procreating and all that stuff all leads to
[00:30:03] death.
[00:30:04] I mean, even not procreating still leads to death.
[00:30:06] Well someone had to procreate it's not fun to die.
[00:30:10] But also getting older right?
[00:30:13] Growing hair.
[00:30:14] Do you think this snake is warning about the ravages of old age?
[00:30:17] I think so.
[00:30:18] I think the snake's like now do they be anymore?
[00:30:20] You're dead but there's a twist.
[00:30:22] You're going to die.
[00:30:23] Which is what like Peter Pan is all about right?
[00:30:25] Like I want to stay a child forever because I don't want to have to age and be sad and
[00:30:32] then die.
[00:30:33] Yeah.
[00:30:34] Like hook.
[00:30:35] Like always here's a clock ticking.
[00:30:36] It's afraid of his time passing.
[00:30:38] Yeah.
[00:30:39] Should we do some taxonomy?
[00:30:41] Let's do it.
[00:30:42] My first one.
[00:30:44] Frogging.
[00:30:45] Which is pH R O G G I N G.
[00:30:48] Is it a sex thing?
[00:30:49] No, that's secretly living in someone's house without their knowledge or permission.
[00:30:53] It might be a sex thing.
[00:30:54] You could be a sex thing if you're spying on them and joking it.
[00:30:57] I can't speak to the jerking at all.
[00:30:59] I feel like it probably happens.
[00:31:01] I mean, if you're just living somewhere, yeah, joking it probably happens.
[00:31:05] If you're living anywhere really.
[00:31:07] Exactly.
[00:31:08] That's what I was saying.
[00:31:10] Well, I was thinking of a recent movie from Netflix called I See You with Helen Hunt
[00:31:15] or she doesn't really have anything to do in the movie but basically there's this sort
[00:31:20] of mid movie twist.
[00:31:23] So I don't know where it turns out there are people secretly living in the protagonist family's
[00:31:28] home and then there's also the movie The Rental where these people are on a like Airbnb
[00:31:35] get away and it turns out there's someone else they're living there filming them.
[00:31:39] And remember that documentary we saw about the guy who owned the hotel who would like
[00:31:42] peep in on everybody who stayed in the hotel?
[00:31:44] Oh, that's right.
[00:31:45] It was really cool.
[00:31:46] I don't remember his call but the thing that was so enjoyable out this documentary is they
[00:31:49] did tiny detailed miniatures of the space and kept kind of zooming in on it and showing
[00:31:56] you everything was put together.
[00:31:57] And I love a good miniature.
[00:31:58] Yeah, I mean, and it's really scary the idea that the place you think you know best where
[00:32:03] you're the most comfortable.
[00:32:04] There's fucking someone else living here and you didn't say they could.
[00:32:07] It's extremely scary.
[00:32:08] Yeah.
[00:32:09] And you don't even know it.
[00:32:10] Mm-hmm.
[00:32:11] Criminal.
[00:32:12] They had some episodes where people talked about finding out that people were secretly living
[00:32:15] in their house.
[00:32:16] No, I'm freaked out.
[00:32:18] That's so work.
[00:32:19] I said, house not apartment.
[00:32:20] Oh, yeah there are people living in this building.
[00:32:24] It is something I like always checking for when I get in a mood.
[00:32:28] Yeah, gotta go look in all the closets.
[00:32:30] Well, my first...
[00:32:32] I mean, here we'd be subletting the closets.
[00:32:35] It's different.
[00:32:36] My first category is Family Money Problems, speaking of subletting the closets.
[00:32:42] So a lot of horror involves Family Money Problems as an impetus for a bad decision or a source
[00:32:50] of stress.
[00:32:52] In this case, I'm thinking of course, Amityville Horror is the classic example.
[00:32:56] This one reminds me a little more though of the classic horror story, Ramona and her
[00:33:00] father.
[00:33:02] I loved Ramona and her father but I think what happens is that her dad wants to become
[00:33:07] an artist and quits his job or he loses his job and is like maybe I could become an
[00:33:12] artist.
[00:33:13] And the mom has kind of cheesed at him and Ramona is very defensive of her father and
[00:33:17] is very proud to feeling adults be scrimping and pinching to make ends meet as she puts
[00:33:21] it, but the big source of strain and plays into certain escapism and anxiety that her
[00:33:27] and her sister had.
[00:33:28] And I think we could see some of that here.
[00:33:30] So mom and dad got him this gift that kind of signifies how they can't provide him very
[00:33:34] well because probably on some level they feel like the dad is a failure and I'm not saying
[00:33:40] you are if you're out of work but they might, the parents probably have some of that
[00:33:43] internalized sense and the kids are probably picking up on it too.
[00:33:46] So I would imagine although I don't feel like doing it right now there'd be a way at
[00:33:50] looking at this whole story is grappling with feeling like your parents have failed in
[00:33:55] some way or limited.
[00:33:57] Well, the other thing too is what's hanging over them in the very beginning of the story
[00:34:02] is the possibility that they just have to leave all this behind anyway because you know
[00:34:06] it's possible if you get to job that somewhere far away they just have to drop everything
[00:34:09] and go with it.
[00:34:10] Yeah, that's true.
[00:34:12] And maybe it would be enjoyable for this kid to be able to escape some of his where he
[00:34:16] comes from.
[00:34:17] You know, I mean, this is just going to follow him wherever he goes though, but not his
[00:34:21] baby room.
[00:34:22] No, not his baby room.
[00:34:24] My next one was secondhand stuff.
[00:34:26] AKA deadly garage sale.
[00:34:28] My next one was scary furniture so similar.
[00:34:30] Awesome.
[00:34:31] I mean, there are so many here.
[00:34:33] Monkeys paw is one of the classic story of finding an object and it's more dangerous
[00:34:40] than it seems.
[00:34:41] Yeah, I mean, it's related to what you're saying about the horror of someone being in your
[00:34:45] house.
[00:34:46] You didn't know was there?
[00:34:47] I have this object but someone had it before me.
[00:34:49] What did they do to it?
[00:34:50] So reason I will never pick stuff up off the street anymore even if it looks perfectly
[00:34:53] good.
[00:34:54] If you can have bed bugs and dogs it probably peed on it.
[00:34:57] Yeah.
[00:34:58] Very much so.
[00:34:59] There's this history.
[00:35:00] There might be hidden things about it that it's not like it just came out of the key
[00:35:06] a box.
[00:35:07] It might have been involved in something messed up.
[00:35:09] Mm-hmm.
[00:35:10] Could be.
[00:35:11] Not like something that came out of the key a box.
[00:35:14] Who knows?
[00:35:15] Yeah, I had scary furniture relatedly and I was thinking of we recently watched some
[00:35:22] really good sequel series, Amityville, a new generation.
[00:35:27] And Amityville, it's about time.
[00:35:30] Which had to do with the...
[00:35:31] What was it about?
[00:35:32] Well there was an evil mirror and there was an evil clock.
[00:35:36] That's right.
[00:35:37] They had come from the Amityville house.
[00:35:39] It was a weird like, spin-off studio where people had stuff from the Amityville house
[00:35:44] that brought bedbuck with it.
[00:35:46] Actually I liked both of them.
[00:35:48] Yeah.
[00:35:49] If you know what you're getting into, it's their very enjoyable and a...
[00:35:54] Huh?
[00:35:55] And of course there's a classic asshole near we've talked about in the movie Oculus.
[00:35:59] There's a classic asshole mirror.
[00:36:02] What's the person who wrote that story about the person who's a chair?
[00:36:05] God, I don't remember the perspective of the chair.
[00:36:08] From the perspective of the chair.
[00:36:10] Oh, there's a short story.
[00:36:11] We'll look it up.
[00:36:12] Oh, damn and I forgot I wrote this down.
[00:36:14] I guess I had a lot to say on this one but okay so just to clarify about the person
[00:36:18] who's a chair, there's this story and it's told from the perspective of this person
[00:36:21] who is sewn inside of a chair and is talking to you, who's the person who owns this chair
[00:36:26] and doesn't know they're inside of it.
[00:36:27] Yeah, I guess when you bring the mirror into your house in this story, oh it's called
[00:36:31] The Human Chair by Edogawa Rampo.
[00:36:33] It looks like...
[00:36:34] It's from 1925.
[00:36:35] It's really good.
[00:36:36] Wow.
[00:36:37] But anyway, the idea of someone being in your house meets the idea of furniture having a
[00:36:43] life before you.
[00:36:44] But the other thing, did you ever sing the song in school about the grandfather clock?
[00:36:50] Maybe.
[00:36:51] It's about a grandfather clock that was in this kid's house and it chugged along and it
[00:36:58] was older than his grandfather and it stopped short, never to run again when the old man
[00:37:06] died.
[00:37:07] Is the line.
[00:37:08] Oh, I actually don't think I know this one.
[00:37:10] That's freaky.
[00:37:11] Yeah, it's a song for children too.
[00:37:12] It is freaky but I think that song came to mind for me because it seems like sometimes
[00:37:19] the objects that we spend our life with have a weird connection to us, especially if it
[00:37:24] does something like measure your life or capture your image.
[00:37:28] And so I feel like our friend here is tied to the mirror in some way especially because
[00:37:32] when he breaks it, Claudia pops by and says well now you have seven years bad luck.
[00:37:36] He's not really rid of it.
[00:37:37] Yeah, that's true.
[00:37:38] What else do you got?
[00:37:40] Splatterpunk for kids.
[00:37:41] Yeah.
[00:37:42] That's what I...
[00:37:43] Into Splatterpunk lately.
[00:37:44] That's what I felt like this was.
[00:37:45] So Splatterpunk is a subgenre of horror that is characterized by gory violence.
[00:37:51] The New York Times has this to say about it.
[00:37:54] Splatterpunk is regarded as a revolt against the traditional, meekly suggestive horror
[00:37:58] story.
[00:37:59] An early example is Michael Shay's The Autopsy which was recently adapted in Guillermo
[00:38:04] del Toro's cabinet of curiosity series, sorry, F.R.A Abraham.
[00:38:08] It's like one of the only good entries from that series I think.
[00:38:12] I remember that one, yeah.
[00:38:14] So there, you know in some examples would be Clive Barker, a writer who used to go by
[00:38:20] Papi Z. Bright, but now is William Joseph Martin, Catholic Cooja or Cooja I'm not sure
[00:38:26] which are layman and the other way that a lot of people will be familiar with this is
[00:38:30] the sort of film analog which is a Splatterfilm and so Wikipedia has this to say a Splatter
[00:38:37] film is a subgenre of horror that deliberately focuses on graphic portrayals of gory and
[00:38:41] graphic violence.
[00:38:42] These films usually through the use of special effects display a fascination with the vulnerability
[00:38:47] of the human body and the theatricality of its mutilation.
[00:38:50] The term Splatter Cinema was coined by George A. Romero to describe his own film Don
[00:38:54] of the Dead, although I feel like arguably that's not really what we think of when we
[00:38:59] think of Splatter Films.
[00:39:00] Would you put the later saw movies in this category?
[00:39:04] Well like that one that was open with that really stupid scene where the people were
[00:39:08] 7-3-some.
[00:39:09] Yeah, no that's a list of 7.
[00:39:11] Yeah, but it was saw-sam in the movie.
[00:39:14] So because that comes out of this later era of like quote unquote torture porn, torture
[00:39:19] porn is I think thought to come out of Splatter so it's like in a lineage with it but yeah
[00:39:26] I think you could call it that and if you were trying to be film critic, you know historicizing
[00:39:32] might separate them.
[00:39:33] Is something like martyrs a little too serious to be Splatter Punk?
[00:39:37] Because I think I would think so.
[00:39:39] Yeah, yeah.
[00:39:40] Because when I think about the term I feel like there's got to be like a little bit of
[00:39:43] glee to it.
[00:39:44] Yeah, I think that theatricality at least again in the film version is part of it.
[00:39:49] And I feel like that's like the kids who read Goosebumps as a kid would probably grow
[00:39:53] up many of them to be into Splatter Punk because Arlesine really approaches showing gruesome
[00:39:59] upsetting things with a bit of humor and like mad cappness.
[00:40:04] Yeah, absolutely.
[00:40:05] Which is enjoyable.
[00:40:06] Yeah, especially for anyone who deals with depression or anxiety.
[00:40:09] Exactly.
[00:40:10] My next one is Exo Skeleton Horror.
[00:40:13] Ooh, that is horrifying.
[00:40:15] Yeah, I just think a crab monster is scary.
[00:40:18] There is a crab horror subgenre and I looked into some of those but didn't see anything
[00:40:22] directly related.
[00:40:23] I do think the choice to have a monster, having Exo Skeleton can really be upsetting on
[00:40:29] a very visceral level where it bothers Judy.
[00:40:32] Imagine it clacking around.
[00:40:34] Yeah, there definitely also were some like paperback horror novels about giant crabs.
[00:40:38] Grady Hendrix talks about this in his book Paperbacks from Hell.
[00:40:41] Yeah.
[00:40:42] So examples they came up with were alien under the skin, Boba Doak.
[00:40:47] There was a tales to give you Goosebumps episode or episode installation which installed
[00:40:53] the element.
[00:40:54] That's the word with a crab that like cuts the main character set off.
[00:40:58] Oh yeah, I was like, I forget what they go back and look into this cave.
[00:41:02] I remember what you were talking about and I have no idea what it's called or when we
[00:41:06] read it.
[00:41:07] It does actually cut their head off right?
[00:41:08] Probably not.
[00:41:09] I don't remember how it ends.
[00:41:10] I feel like it was in there.
[00:41:12] It was a snail, wasn't it?
[00:41:13] It was a shell.
[00:41:14] I remember someone getting a crab like close to their head and it was a shell shocked.
[00:41:20] Yeah.
[00:41:21] Maybe two different things.
[00:41:23] You're thinking of Uzumaki, which I think you'd be thinking about two different but similar
[00:41:28] stories.
[00:41:29] Well, Exoskeleton horror is a snail shell and Exoskeleton?
[00:41:32] I don't think so.
[00:41:33] Well it's gross.
[00:41:34] Uzumaki is a really horrible book.
[00:41:36] I'm really fucking good.
[00:41:38] But anyway, I'm getting far afield.
[00:41:39] My point is Exoskeletons are, why do you think they're scary?
[00:41:44] It's like, I think it's probably a sort of human lizard-brain thing where it's like your
[00:41:49] outside's on your inside.
[00:41:50] Why are you so hard and shiny?
[00:41:52] I don't like it.
[00:41:53] And it's very unpleasant to crunch them.
[00:41:55] Yeah, and have their softness ooze out.
[00:41:58] Yeah, the sound.
[00:42:00] Well, and then when the parts move, I'm like, shouldn't be happening.
[00:42:06] Nope.
[00:42:07] Any other categories?
[00:42:08] Yeah.
[00:42:09] My next one is friendship power struggle because a big part of the book especially early
[00:42:14] on is Jason feeling very easily like he's superior to Fred in these ways specifically
[00:42:22] to do with masculinity.
[00:42:24] And then there's this turn where suddenly Fred is better than him, and you kind of get
[00:42:28] the sense Jason didn't actually really want that.
[00:42:31] And even though we learned that Puncher Fred is the monster, I wouldn't be surprised if
[00:42:37] actual Fred also has that aggression towards him.
[00:42:39] I would imagine, and maybe part of the metaphorical fear at play here or the fear that's being
[00:42:45] metaphorized here is that if you're kind of shitting on your friend all the time they
[00:42:50] might be getting feeling aggressive towards you and you might come back in, huh?
[00:42:54] Yeah.
[00:42:55] Yeah, so a couple examples I thought of that were recent were Rose Red, the series on the
[00:43:02] thing is from the BBC.
[00:43:03] That's cool.
[00:43:04] Yeah, but there's a little bit of a friendship power struggle.
[00:43:07] And then the movie Sissy on Shutter, love it.
[00:43:09] It's so good.
[00:43:10] But it's all about these shifting dynamics within friendships.
[00:43:15] Bodies, bodies, bodies.
[00:43:17] Yeah.
[00:43:18] Yes.
[00:43:19] I had to go back in to save someone.
[00:43:24] Barbarian, the people under the stairs, the recent Stephen King novel Fairy Tale which
[00:43:29] I really would like to talk through with someone if anyone's read it, give me a shout out
[00:43:34] on the socials.
[00:43:35] Can I use Twitter anymore?
[00:43:37] I have no idea.
[00:43:38] Like I don't even know if our listeners are still on it.
[00:43:41] I haven't been on there in a long time, certainly not since it.
[00:43:44] You blame it.
[00:43:45] I don't know what we should use instead besides Instagram.
[00:43:48] I don't know either.
[00:43:49] Well, not going to learn about Master on or Blue Sky.
[00:43:52] I'm not doing it.
[00:43:53] No, and I'm not going to make a TikTok.
[00:43:55] No.
[00:43:56] It's probably over by now anyway.
[00:43:57] Yeah, probably.
[00:43:58] Okay, so yes, it's something that really sucks for the main character.
[00:44:03] You don't have to go back in and save someone when you were smart enough to get out, but
[00:44:07] that's what happens here.
[00:44:08] And it's such a frustrating thing for the viewer when you know that they're safe, but
[00:44:14] they have to do this thing.
[00:44:15] And I feel like when it's pulled off really well, it's a really, you feel that dilemma.
[00:44:21] And sometimes it's like, oh, you don't need to go back in for your sweater or whatever.
[00:44:25] But you do need to go back in for the dogs.
[00:44:27] Yes, you do.
[00:44:28] Amity Bill Horthmer.
[00:44:29] Yes.
[00:44:30] It's like the one nice thing that guy does.
[00:44:32] Yeah.
[00:44:33] Well, my last one was it wasn't a dream.
[00:44:37] The A.K.A.
[00:44:38] It's worse than you thought.
[00:44:40] I thought about the scene from Rosemary's Baby where she realizes in the middle of being
[00:44:44] assaulted by Satan.
[00:44:45] This is no dream.
[00:44:46] This is really happening.
[00:44:47] Yeah.
[00:44:48] And then there's movies like Haunt or the invitation where something seems bad on the
[00:44:53] surface but it turns out it's actually way worse.
[00:44:56] It's a, I think a really satisfying turn in horror when it's not good.
[00:45:01] Like it seems to be going in a certain kind of direction, right?
[00:45:04] Like, oh, you're the son to tell us or whatever.
[00:45:06] And then it just takes even just a further turn and you're in very unexpected territory.
[00:45:11] I personally find it very satisfying.
[00:45:13] Me too.
[00:45:14] Again, barbarian.
[00:45:15] Shared universe.
[00:45:16] Shared universe.
[00:45:17] So it's been a long time.
[00:45:20] My notes right here.
[00:45:21] Maybe you can help me understand.
[00:45:24] It says two geeks from the audience.
[00:45:27] Earth geeks.
[00:45:29] But I don't know two geeks from the audience.
[00:45:31] When did that come up?
[00:45:33] You know what?
[00:45:34] I actually found it in my notes.
[00:45:36] Apparently at one point he's talking with Fred about WWF and how it got violent when
[00:45:42] two geeks from the audience tried to get into the fight.
[00:45:45] So I put Earth geeks, which I feel like is a lot of stretch even for me.
[00:45:50] You know, maybe, maybe this is the planet where the people who are like Earth geeks must go
[00:45:56] come from and they're like, ah, some Earth geeks got into the match.
[00:46:00] Maybe.
[00:46:01] Maybe they're just regular earth geeks because they're on Earth.
[00:46:03] In law school, I've learned the phrase term of art, which is like you can say issue or
[00:46:10] you can say issue as a legal term, right?
[00:46:13] So maybe this is a term of art.
[00:46:16] Earth geeks.
[00:46:17] Or it could be just actual geeks from our, as she said, I think it's unclear.
[00:46:23] I assume that the two geeks thing is a reference to something that actually happened in the
[00:46:28] WWF at that time, but I will be damned to find out what that is.
[00:46:32] Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
[00:46:34] I have some other stuff.
[00:46:35] What about you?
[00:46:36] Well, this we started talking about a little bit already, but how would you compare this
[00:46:40] mirror to the mirror in Let's Get Invisible?
[00:46:43] So I think the mirror technology and the goose versus something I would really love to
[00:46:46] read somebody's analysis out.
[00:46:50] There seems to be permeable pretty consistently and have evil doubles in them.
[00:46:58] I think about, again, I brought up earlier the ghost next door and how, in at least some
[00:47:04] parts of the goose first, you have a ghost version of yourself that's evil that's waiting
[00:47:09] to take over your body when you die sometimes if it manages to.
[00:47:14] And maybe somehow a bunch of these got contained in a mirror or the force that does that got
[00:47:18] contained in a mirror?
[00:47:20] Yeah, it's interesting because I would have thought about those things a little differently.
[00:47:26] I feel like the doubles in Let's Get Invisible, we didn't see any evidence that they're monsters
[00:47:33] in the same way.
[00:47:34] They seem to just want to replicate and replace.
[00:47:38] And a bunch of the threads that got made in this one, they didn't even want to replace
[00:47:41] but they seemed to replicate.
[00:47:42] No, then they just like wandered off.
[00:47:45] But in this one, there's almost this tongue and cheek call back to be, you're going to
[00:47:51] be a ghost thing from the ghost next door.
[00:47:55] And also to like, this is like a reference to Let's Get Invisible with this sort of double
[00:47:59] in the mirror.
[00:48:00] I mean, it doesn't have to be Let's Get Invisible.
[00:48:01] Obviously, double in the mirror is not a super, is not a concept unique to that.
[00:48:05] Well within the goose first, that's our major touchstone but it also takes your sort of expectation
[00:48:13] that it's just ripping on those things and is like, surprise.
[00:48:16] There's a crab monster in here.
[00:48:18] So it's unclear to me whether this is like a portal to some other dimension if it's
[00:48:26] some kind of, you know, enchanted thing where these monsters were banished to this weird
[00:48:31] mirror but it seems different to me from the Let's Get Invisible Mirror.
[00:48:36] But maybe that's only because we didn't see the full extent of the monstrosity of that
[00:48:40] mirror.
[00:48:41] And we got a half form theory.
[00:48:42] Okay.
[00:48:43] So what are mirrors made of?
[00:48:45] Glass.
[00:48:46] And what are camera lenses made of?
[00:48:49] Glass?
[00:48:50] I don't actually know.
[00:48:51] I think in the one in say cheese and dye probably.
[00:48:55] So what if much like in my reading of say cheese and dye the intent in the heart of the
[00:49:02] person who looks through the ear, the mirror, through the lens, through the camera, their
[00:49:07] men's raya, if you will.
[00:49:11] It causes the evil thing to happen in the world.
[00:49:14] So in your reading, Busy the Terrier sees himself as like a really tough dog so that's what
[00:49:21] comes out and he's got a lot of rage and that's what comes out.
[00:49:25] And so does Fred.
[00:49:26] Mm-hmm.
[00:49:27] So what does that tell us about Jason?
[00:49:28] In his heart he's barely human and wants to annihilate himself and others.
[00:49:34] Yeah.
[00:49:35] Alright, let's go with that.
[00:49:36] Yeah.
[00:49:37] It's gonna be that easy.
[00:49:39] Yeah.
[00:49:41] So maybe just like would suspicious in the goose first, so is glass which means sand probably
[00:49:46] also a problem.
[00:49:47] I mean in general yeah.
[00:49:49] It gets everywhere.
[00:49:50] It's rough.
[00:49:54] I have another really stupid theory.
[00:49:56] I think I was tired when I wrote this back in March.
[00:50:01] Yeah.
[00:50:02] When we had a baby who was one year old.
[00:50:05] I put down, there's this part in the book where a hornet gets into the room and it's buzzing
[00:50:15] around and then that's just never brought up again.
[00:50:18] Why was that seen there?
[00:50:19] I want to say it was a reference to Peter Straub's ghost story.
[00:50:23] Oh, so that's how that ends.
[00:50:26] Really with a wasp.
[00:50:27] What happens?
[00:50:29] So I'm struggling to remember the entire sort of chain of events but there's this, I
[00:50:35] think entity that is like taking possession of different bodies and this guy has like kidnapped
[00:50:43] this child in order to get it out.
[00:50:45] And then I think I assume kills the child.
[00:50:49] That must be what happens.
[00:50:50] But then basically there's also a wasp in the car and so he sees that like the wasp has
[00:50:54] been possessed by this thing.
[00:50:56] That's amazing.
[00:50:57] And also yeah, it's a little bit the fly and a little bit um, why am I afraid of bees?
[00:51:02] And it's going to say otherwise it's someone who went to switch bodies with someone.
[00:51:06] So maybe like part of why mere Jason has a exoskeleton and stuff is because he got kind
[00:51:13] of screwed up with a hornet?
[00:51:15] Are you thinking this is a story about the kid that Gary Lutz swapped with?
[00:51:22] Could be, I mean I think that kid was popular but, you know, sure.
[00:51:26] It could be something similar happening.
[00:51:28] We don't totally know the technology behind the, why I'm afraid of bees body swapping.
[00:51:33] Because I'm trying to remember now that that kid he must have consented to that procedure
[00:51:38] where they didn't just pick her in up kid.
[00:51:40] But they made a mistake by letting a beagain.
[00:51:42] Yeah.
[00:51:43] What does any of this have to do with the dog being named Busy?
[00:51:47] Oh.
[00:51:48] Weird name for a dog.
[00:51:49] It is.
[00:51:50] Maybe just trying to call your attention to the hornet so you'll understand it's significance
[00:51:54] when you grow up and read Peter's draw.
[00:51:57] Yeah, he's really playing the long game, Marlestine.
[00:51:59] I mean, I will say having read Alas, Stephen King and only a little bit of Peter's
[00:52:03] tribe, I think Peter's tribe is under song in our decade.
[00:52:06] Yeah, probably.
[00:52:07] When you know the story, you can only find that one thing he wrote with Stephen King.
[00:52:10] I know.
[00:52:11] Even though he's really good.
[00:52:13] My last note here under Sherry Universe is the fuck is the snake thing and how have we
[00:52:17] seen it before?
[00:52:18] Well, that was my first theories and queries.
[00:52:19] Can you explain the ending for a tongue snake?
[00:52:23] It's no.
[00:52:24] I can't.
[00:52:25] Yeah, it's so strange that it's furry.
[00:52:28] I don't know.
[00:52:29] Is it a whole thing not furious?
[00:52:31] It was a tongue.
[00:52:32] It was a tongue.
[00:52:33] I'm not sure from my notes because I didn't write the sound.
[00:52:36] I'm sure someone will tell us.
[00:52:38] But let's go with furry tongue.
[00:52:40] Okay.
[00:52:41] Sounds unpleasant.
[00:52:42] Yeah.
[00:52:43] Sounds like it's a warning against jerking it.
[00:52:48] Why does it end with a snake in a drawer?
[00:52:50] I mean, I think I kind of already covered this little.
[00:52:52] Why didn't the snake offer any help before this moment?
[00:52:55] Because he waits till it's all done and he's like, oh, what's giving out?
[00:52:58] Maybe the drawer was jammed shut.
[00:53:00] Although it's what they said about the drawer that it was jammed shut and therefore the
[00:53:03] dresser was useless.
[00:53:04] Yeah, but then maybe the snake was stuck in there or maybe it was just like, obviously
[00:53:08] how this plays out.
[00:53:09] And then when it's broken, it's like, oh yeah, wish I could have helped you out.
[00:53:12] It sounds like this snake's a real moth man being like, oh, I tried to warn you.
[00:53:16] Yeah.
[00:53:17] Then just kind of sat back and watch.
[00:53:18] Yeah.
[00:53:19] Why didn't you understand what I meant when I said the bridge?
[00:53:21] Exactly.
[00:53:22] Also, I mean, it sounds to me of all the creatures we've seen most similar to either some of
[00:53:29] the creatures at the beginning of Welcome to Camp Nightmare.
[00:53:33] You know, like what was it?
[00:53:34] The Prairie Cats or the creatures in the beast from the East where it's like a almost
[00:53:43] Dr. Susie inversion of an everyday creature but a little bit scary.
[00:53:48] Yeah, it really does read.
[00:53:50] It really does read beast from the East.
[00:53:52] Uh-huh.
[00:53:53] And Dr. Sus.
[00:53:54] And Dr. Sus.
[00:53:55] Uh, which by the way folks, if it's been a minute since you read the Dr. Sus book, just
[00:54:01] try to get through one.
[00:54:02] They are long as hell.
[00:54:04] They're fucking long.
[00:54:05] Yeah.
[00:54:06] They're so long.
[00:54:07] Go doos go like 60 pages.
[00:54:08] That's PD Eastman.
[00:54:09] But they're not the same person.
[00:54:10] They're not the same person but same idea.
[00:54:11] Okay.
[00:54:12] Well also, green eggs and ham is like 60 pages.
[00:54:15] It's really long, yeah.
[00:54:17] Did you have any other thoughts on the furry tongue snake?
[00:54:20] No.
[00:54:21] I didn't know explanation.
[00:54:22] No, none except for maybe kind of a jerk.
[00:54:25] I mean funny.
[00:54:26] It's like supposed to be a little funny bit at the end like at the end and how I got my
[00:54:28] shrimp and head where it's like, oh, well, I forget what I said.
[00:54:32] And that ends up being the last word in the entire series too.
[00:54:36] Spoken by this like goofy snake.
[00:54:38] Did you get my note?
[00:54:40] How does that read to as Aral stands comment on the series as a whole?
[00:54:44] Did you see what I did there?
[00:54:46] Yeah.
[00:54:47] I mean, that's a very...
[00:54:48] I feel like he's got the kind of dad humor where that would be what he wants.
[00:54:53] Like you to come away with at the end is noticing what he did there.
[00:54:56] Yeah.
[00:54:57] I think I had a lot of same territories as you.
[00:54:59] I had questions about the mirrors, same as you and about the ending, about how it's
[00:55:05] a story about when friends change, when you change, and being out of step with those changes.
[00:55:11] Which I think is kind of a poignant way to end the series 2000.
[00:55:14] So I'm just going to my theories and curiousness.
[00:55:17] We've covered most of it, including wire garage, sail slash, and teaking so spooky.
[00:55:21] But then I have one note here that I just...
[00:55:23] I wish I knew what I was thinking.
[00:55:25] It says, Unified Theory of mirrors and clocks in the goose first.
[00:55:28] Oh, well, I would like to know what you're thinking too.
[00:55:30] I'd love to read your thesis.
[00:55:32] I might have been asking...
[00:55:33] I might have been wanting to ask you about one, but I guess we'll never know.
[00:55:36] Well, I had a unified theory of cameras and mirrors.
[00:55:39] Yeah, that's pretty close actually.
[00:55:41] Yeah.
[00:55:42] And we did talk about clocks a little bit.
[00:55:44] The clocks come up in this.
[00:55:46] Why did I say clocks?
[00:55:47] I think because you were thinking of the kugoo clock of doom.
[00:55:51] And how...
[00:55:52] As I do.
[00:55:53] Yeah, it is also a creepy thing from our garage sail that screws with you.
[00:55:57] So it's from an antique store.
[00:55:59] Right.
[00:56:00] They're similar.
[00:56:01] Yeah, you know.
[00:56:02] Well, goosebunks, this...
[00:56:06] I would like to return to what I was saying about poignancy.
[00:56:10] Do you feel like it's poignant?
[00:56:12] The end of the story?
[00:56:14] The end of the series 2000.
[00:56:15] Yeah, I also feel like it ended on a high note which...
[00:56:19] Not on Monster Blood 4?
[00:56:21] Yeah.
[00:56:22] Or yeah.
[00:56:23] Yeah, exactly.
[00:56:24] No, it's like if the original one had...
[00:56:25] If the original series had ended on, I live in your basement actually.
[00:56:28] I think their stories that are very in tune with each other.
[00:56:32] And you know, if we think of each series as a little generation following it as they grow
[00:56:38] up out of kids' stories and into teen stories.
[00:56:42] Oh, series 2000 groups so fast.
[00:56:44] I know it did.
[00:56:45] Not for us.
[00:56:46] It took us like two years.
[00:56:47] And we still have so many more series to get through in this.
[00:56:52] So as we said, we're gonna switch gears to do a wrap up on the series.
[00:56:57] Talk about Ungodly Goosebumps which thank you women enthusiast for directing me to that
[00:57:02] beautiful thing.
[00:57:04] And then we are gonna get into his...
[00:57:07] I think some of the stories.
[00:57:09] Mm-hmm.
[00:57:10] We're gonna do more tales.
[00:57:11] We'll do more tales.
[00:57:12] We wanna wrap up those.
[00:57:14] And we'll do superstitious.
[00:57:15] Yeah.
[00:57:16] And I think so the rough plan is we want to continue with some of the other series getting
[00:57:23] through...
[00:57:24] There's the one that's...
[00:57:25] The Swap for a little...
[00:57:26] Yeah, yeah.
[00:57:27] ...and whatever.
[00:57:28] So as a couple more series ahead, Arles Dinesdell producing, there's the TV show coming
[00:57:32] out.
[00:57:33] But also we want to cover some side quests.
[00:57:36] So other similar types of horror fiction that shivers and things like that that came
[00:57:42] out around the same time.
[00:57:44] So we'll dip into those as well.
[00:57:46] Sometime in the next several years that we continue doing this on a scale of one to
[00:57:51] five bewairs, what would you give the Ghost of the Mirror?
[00:57:54] I feel like it's just a three and a half for me really.
[00:57:59] Yeah, like it's a fine story.
[00:58:01] I've seen a lot of it before.
[00:58:03] The monster thing was surprising.
[00:58:04] The first thing was surprising.
[00:58:06] It is a solid three and a half.
[00:58:09] I'm not sad I read it.
[00:58:10] I'm not angry at it.
[00:58:11] I'm not wowed.
[00:58:13] So I feel like my point of view is colored by the fact that like the bar is on the floor
[00:58:17] and I was feeling so just beaten down by most of series 2000.
[00:58:23] I give it four and a half.
[00:58:25] Okay, agreed to disagree...
[00:58:27] Well, agree that we have different ideas about it.
[00:58:29] Yeah, no, it's just like...
[00:58:31] That's a fine.
[00:58:32] It was gross.
[00:58:33] It really went there in places and I was like, yeah, you ripped a fucking monster's eyeballs
[00:58:38] out of its head.
[00:58:39] That was really fucking cool actually.
[00:58:40] Yeah, and a great way to get to the spirit of series 2000 with it's leveled up horror.
[00:58:48] As a quick sidebar, I do want to say that even though we had one however year, I'm very
[00:58:53] happy right now.
[00:58:54] Yeah, absolutely.
[00:58:55] I'm exhausted, but I'm really happy.
[00:58:58] Yeah, and we're happy to be back.
[00:59:00] Yeah.
[00:59:01] I think becoming a lawyer instead of a professor is probably one of the best things I've done
[00:59:05] for my mental health even though by on the books it was an incredibly stupid decision.
[00:59:11] I had a summer job this year that I loved.
[00:59:13] It's the best job I ever had.
[00:59:14] I'm really enjoying myself and it seems like you are too.
[00:59:17] I am too, yeah.
[00:59:18] We hope you are too.
[00:59:20] So yeah, Goosebumps, tell us what you thought of Ghost in the Mirror.
[00:59:24] I guess I will log into X slash Twitter just to see what's been happening at Saipada.
[00:59:29] Yeah, at Saipada and Die.
[00:59:31] And let you all know that we'll probably not be using that platform anymore and ask you
[00:59:35] to please come join us on Instagram.
[00:59:37] Also at Saipada and Die or send us an email at Saipada and Die at Gmail.com.
[00:59:41] Eventually we'll collect some of your emails and read them.
[00:59:44] Really bad if you did want us waiting in the pipeline.
[00:59:48] Break this podcast wherever you found it.
[00:59:51] Listenerberware.
[00:59:52] Those are the scares.
[00:59:53] Good boo.
[00:59:57] But in the glass, the murky dark glass, the shadows were dancing, rolling, moving closer.
[01:00:05] I watched an open mouthed silence as the shadows split into, formed two misty figures, a tall
[01:00:11] figure and a short dot of a figure, a dog, buzzy.
[01:00:15] And why did the other figure, the tall, lean one?
[01:00:18] Why did it remind me of Fred?
[01:00:20] Was it the narrow rounded head, the slender, bony shoulders, his posture, the way the
[01:00:25] faceless cloudy figure stood hunched with its head hanging down?
[01:00:30] Was I really staring at shadow figures of Fred and Buzzy or was I totally losing it?
[01:00:35] Wind held outside the window, at least I thought the howling came from outside.
[01:00:39] The room grew even darker, the figures in the mirror faded, I shoved my cold hands deep
[01:00:44] into my pockets and squinted into the mirror.
[01:00:48] Dark now, dark as night, the figures had vanished.
[01:00:51] I stared at the smooth dark glass and trembled.
[01:00:54] I'm afraid I realized, I'm afraid of my own bedroom, there's something inside this
[01:00:58] mirror.
[01:01:00] What does it want?