Lost Tapes Chronicles: Poltergeist

We're there are creatures science refuses to recognize. If our eyes see it, if our cameras capture it, does it exist? Do you believe? Hell Over one and welcome to yet another episode of Scary Stories we Tell. I am your host, Chris dash You, and I'm joined by two of my good friends.

Well, I guess I joined by Jess Byard, co host of the show What I don't Understand. I was here and you were on the first season, and now I'm here and you're on the third season. It's a wildly different show. Yeah, fuck, well we'll have to we'll have to talk about that a little bit. But also joined as always in these lost Tapes chronicles by your Friend and Mine, Man about Town, the Artist among Men, Maggoty odd Hey, Gang three Dudes podcast in it, I know, opening were inevitably going to become the grumpy old Man.

So I mean, I've been waiting to do a podcast where we just talk about random shit, and maybe maybe we'll finally figure out how to do it, because I mean, I mean, you know, hey, I mean this this show talks about random shit, but I'm talking about things that are less even themed than our show gets. But on this episode of the Lost Tapes Chronicle, we are going to be talking about the fourth episode of the third season and Lost Tapes. My God, how we've strayed so far from God's loving light. We don't even give a shit about cryptids anymore. On this episode, we're talking about poltergeist question mark exclamation point.

Yeah, I think we're talking about paranormal activity. Is God a holy shit? Yeah? So before we talk about the episode, Jess, like you mentioned you, I want to say the first two three episodes of Lost Tapes were as far as you got with the show, right, Yeah? Do you remember when you do you remember when you stopped watching the show?

I don't. I remembered. Yeah, I think I watched like through the half of the second season. Maybe, Okay, but the show is markedly different now, wouldn't you say entirely different? Is it?

Is it weird coming back to the show towards the end of this third season and kind of not having a frank because like, the show is so different now? Yeah, I mean when I when I started it, and I at first I thought I had turned on like the wrong like I clicked on the wrong show. And then it was like some type of ghost Hunter show that I had accidentally clicked on. I was like, oh, Holter guys okay, but yeah, I was very taken aback that again the intro isn't there anymore, um boy, and it's like it's a it's very very apparent why they got rid of it, and they they appear at least in this episode. I can't speak to the other ones that have been in this season so far, but they're trying to make it like when when I was first year for it, it was more like a news broadcast type situation, and now it seems like they're actually, at least for this episode, trying to make it seem like it was a real like as it's happening, this footage kind of not going back to like find the footage or whatever the show in the third season.

I think you would agree, Maggie. I think the show has taken a little has taken its foot off the gas of found footage. It's not yeah, found, I guess, I guess the question becomes and Mark Begley and I were talking about this and we talked about clover Field on my other show, The Culture Cast. Found footage means that the footage in the framework of the narrative has to be found on the ground, right, Okay, yeah, I would agree, which kind of puts the narrative at odds with steaks because then you're like, well, if it's just being found on the ground, then how are their steaks with the story? Aren't those people just dead then?

And you've seen people subvert that kind of expectation on various you know, various things we've seen where it's like, no, they didn't actually die, or they dropped it or whatever, you know, any number of variations you can do without killing your main characters. But yeah, this show has changed it's narrative format a lot kind of overnight. Like the zombie episode was a clear line of demarcation where the show was like, and now it's something else completely. There was a zombie episode and it's it is it is as you know, what is the zombies as real? Uh?

Yeah it is, Yes, it is. And it's not only it's voodoo zombies but also the brain eating kind. At the same time, it's not as exciting as it sounds. Probably the voodoo thing at least makes sense. There was the lesser yea, yeah, its so what what year is this?

This is twenty ten, which is okay, which is kind of mind blowing to me, right because we so we started this show started in o eight in October of eight, and this episode, this, this the Poultargeist episode is premiering October fifth of twenty ten. It premier years with the third episode, so the third and fourth episode came out at the same time. In the first and second episode came out. So to answer the question that you're about to ask, Jess, yes, this came out three years after Paranormal Activity. Yeah, which is weird, like you think, because twenty ten was kind of getting away from the found footage stuff.

I guess, I mean Activity came out and actually, so let's take this back. Paranormal Activity came out in oh nine, right, this is a year after. Yes, yes, but like it is so obvious what it's ripping off. It's not even it's not even attempting to pretend, nope, that it's anything else. Like it's just like, yes, you know what you're getting into kind of even then, yeah, god, oh my god.

Oh it was just I was just really confused to them because they still do have those stupid, like little type of news interviews segments like it was stupid. Wait wait, wait, excuse you. You mean the facts, the animal facts, Jess, Maggie and I enjoy the facts, I know, but animals. So yeah, well, if you're talking specifically about Poltergeist facts, then yeah, this is a fucking stretch. I missed the animal facts, that miss the weird facts.

Well, and that's the thing. I am having a hard time kind of separating the two because, like you mentioned, Jess, the first episode of this show is about the Chepicabra. It is about a cryptid in Mexico that is one of the Big four five. I think we talked about that in the last episode. Mag Yeah, and now now we've come so far that we are at Poultergeist's which are not Again, I maybe it's just me being a pain in the ass or a hard ass drawing a line here, but I don't like that they kind of in this season have really gone away from the crypted stuff.

Yeah. I mean we saw it with the last season with the alien episode. We saw that and that was its own kind of like really stupid take on aliens. It was more like a bug, Jess. It was like a bug that flew around and like it infected people.

I think, and then it got away. Okay, if you want to do that, then like do multiple episodes on different types of aliens, like the reptilian. Don't ask for that, because you're getting it by the end of this season. Just give us the reptilians, don't you don't want, don't ask for that. You're gonna get it.

And it's not you're not gonna like it. But all right, we can we just talk about the opening sequence of this episode. Do we have to anywhere the girl is emailing her friends? What do you do an emailing myself? Yeah?

Yeah, so okay, so this this three told me this is twenty ten. Also because I was thinking this is like two thousand and six or some shit. Oh, like, it just felt it feels really outdated, Like it doesn't like the way it looks the way he felt outdated at the time, Right, it had to like this this like it's yeah, no, you're you're right, you know we obviously three of us are close in age. I think I'm a little I think we're Jess, You and I are the same age. I think, Maggie, right, we're all the same age.

So we all graduated in oh eight. This feels like, oh one, Like, what the fuck is this? Like this is not what was right? I Like, it's like this was two years after I graduated high school like that really? Yeah, and they slid they slid hard this there, yeah, like I I that's the thing.

You know. I remember seeing the first season of this show on TV Live, but I didn't keep up with it past that, so this is all brand new to me. This this would if I had seen this in twenty ten, I feel like it would have felt dated. Then there's no way it wouldn't have. It's a cheap knockoff.

It's like going to a freaking dollar in general and seeing the action figures for G I. Joe. But it's just action yeah yeah, where it's like what the fuck is this? And it's ripping off not only G I Joe, but like Mortal Kombat a little bit. We have a poultergeist at home is what this is?

I mean, it's like, this is this is we have paranormal activity at home? So hard because yeah, it's we have a family, but the kid is troubled and the kid is making things happen, which is not paranormal activity. That and also not how poltergeist work. I didn't think, well, yeah, because well, a Poultergeist the German words entity, right, that's attracted by attracted to teenagers. Oh, attraction by also attraction by very if the poulter Geist is sitting in the corner rubbing its nipples just like m I love these dumb asses.

But like, there's this weird thing where it's like poultergeists are attracted to teenagers because I guess they're experiencing a lot of emotional I think that's drama. Sure, I guess we'll say that. Is that why they were attracted to the house and poultergeist or was it the fact that they were buried over by over bodies? Can't get both explanations as the facts, like one or the other has to be the case, can't be right, I mean talk about drama though, Well that's the thing. Like I I like the idea of Poulter guys being like drawn to emotional turmoil, but like that just doesn't like that suits this narrative.

But then it doesn't because like things just start happening that make no sense whatsoever at all. Turmoil too, isn't like anything out of the ordinary of a typical teenage and middle school aged brother and sister. Like it's not like they're having explosive fights and that the kid is like expiraling and or like the conjuring where it was like a whole like diagnosis type of situation where you're dealing with this inevitability and connection with death. Yes, is just kind of loony. They kind of a roulette wheel every five minutes and just went on a limb for now it's now it's a guy who killed his wife is haunting the house.

Now it's first it's the kid killing. Like it's like they make it out to be at the in this first kind of cold open, because now the show does a cold open, yes, every episode, thank you? I hate it. Yeah, yeah, not a fan of the cold open because they haven't done anything with it of value. It's just very generic and like steering into every trope.

Like at this point, I expect when I know what the episode is going to be about, that I can like throw out a couple of tropes that it's probably going to do and it will maybe do one or two of them, and like, but that's more than enough, because it you should be holding yourself to a higher standard than just doing Oh, you're gonna have the Poulter guys knock things over, and oh, it's gonna fuck with the kid more than anybody else, like yeah, Like and then they find some newspapers that say, oh, there's a guy in this house who killed his wife and they killed himself and that's the Poulter guys, Like, that's not what you said five minutes ago, though, like write now, that just makes me want to like write a dummy script trying to predict the next episode.

Fuck it, and then I'll just read it. That'll be our cold open, and then you can do the intro and then it'll be completely different. It'll be awesome. Chris, I mean you know what I feel like, maybe I spoke too soon Devil Monkey. Yep, maybe I spoke to Jesse's face is exactly much saying I am so stoked for Devil Monkey.

I'm gonna write the best script for Devil Where are we going to temple and zoom? Well, so that's the thing on Wikipedia. If you go and look up the show, it hasn't broken out by episode, and it has the title of the episode, and then it has the creature that the episode is talking about in a next column, And in a lot of times it's you know, like poulter Geist, Poultergeist, and the text is blue and you can click through it to a page on poulter Geist where you can do all the research of your heart desires about Poulter Guys, devil monkey has nothing, just like the Oklahoma octopus, like some of them don't have anything. I guess it wasn't the Oklahoma octopus. It was a giant anaconda.

And it's like, yeah, so it's just a big snake, yea, yeah, I don't. I wonder as devil monkeys it's gonna be, is it? Is it like a monkey is like a monkey with rabies? Like, guys aren't even gonna aren't even gonna guess I'm gonna make it so legit I'm growing an animal fact. Oh see, that's a big I am going to write this script to Night Christ.

That's what the show is missing. The show is missing a care to detail of people who actually care. Yeah, that's what I was gonna say, is who is this show even for? At this point because you're you're talking to you're doing it seems like they're skeewing into trying to have some sort of cinematic quality to each episode, to these newer episodes like doing this doct the pseudo you know, paranormal investigation ship, right, So if you're doing that, your goal is to attract the paranormal activity crew that's for this specific episode. Yeah.

Yeah, But overall the topic and tone of this show is can confusing because I go for it. Oh No, I have a theory on though one because I think it's just one of those classic cases during this era of TV and even like the early thousands, like they did not know how to market to teens, and this feels like one of those weird attempts where it's like, well, I mean, they watched the stupid movies, so they're going to watch this. Well exactly at the end of the first season, remember the Hellhound episode that felt like like hello, fellow kids, big time royally dude, exactly. I think that's what they were going for. They just have no idea how to connect to teening.

But also, this is an Animal Planet show, so the most like you're demographic of people watching it are either children or older people, right. Well, and that's and that's the thing that I open it in the in the earlier seasons when they were animals. Yeah, when exactly they were animals. They took them more like unsolved mysteries whatever approach to it, where it's like more of a news broadcast. It was not stylistically interesting.

The first season of the show was bland. It was very much very wrote in the way that it was made. It was very workmanlike, and that worked for it because it's found footage. It's found footage about cryptids. Yeah, like it's like a research footage has no style.

You can introduce cinema verite sort of. I mean Cloverfield kind of does. But this show doesn't have a twenty million dollar budget. This show is not being directed by a director who will go on to make more films that this at all. Like yeah, like whatever a director they had on hand, it's okay in a way to just pick up a director and say, can you make the show with us, because it just needs to be a person, a believable person holding a camera story right right right, which they kind of have gotten in front of Now they're like, well, we can almost explain to you why there's a camera and every episode and it's like but now you just have kind of put that before everything else.

Almost Yeah, it's shoehorns so hard, right, and it's in again like Poulter geists, like this is like this is animal like you said, yes, this is animal planet, like yeah, likes, cryptids aren't necessarily animals, like, but they're usually they are solid beings right sometimes yeah, right, Kelly Hopkins Bill goblins may or may not be cryptids, but like they're crypted adjacent. Yes, yeah, but like now you're just like fine ghost but then actually, but don't if you want to talk about Poulter guys, then talk about multiple stories of Poulter guys, right, don't make up this one very generic, bland story about poulter Geist and say that the other works all the time, the other thing that will blow your mind.

And Maggie and I talked about in the last episode, because now we don't have any more of these episodes to talk about. You managed to miss all of them. There's no Luckness Monster episode in this show. What yeah, right right? He crept himself right right.

There's been Bigfoot, multiple sasquatchesque creatures. We're gonna have one more this season with Yedtie. There's been Mofman. There's been chupacabra. Fuck, there's been two vampires now, not a single fucking aposter empire.

Yeah yeah, vaguely mommies. No undead undead you asked you, if you asked Frankenstein Monster, I would say zombies technically, you know, reanimated flesh. But there were several water episodes that were varying degrees of idiotic. I mean the Oklahoma Octopus. I think you saw that one, which was fake as hell and didn't exist.

But then we saw other water episodes and they were all like things. It's not like things that didn't matter, you know, White River Monster, Uh what was White River Monster? The Oklahoma Octopus, the Bear Lake Monster. There was one we watched that was like set on the ocean on the oh yeah, holy the Monterey Monster. O that new NeSSI but that was just like that was like new NeSSI is just like the that fucking basking shark corpse that they found it.

Like we said, it's Animal Planet, Animal Planets thing? Is also it being a travel show or travel network? Yeah, you if you ran out of American cryptids, which clearly you did, why why wouldn't you go into That's the problem? Like they didn't run out. Yeah.

Fair, But if you feel like you don't want to talk about lockness or whatever, then why not find something cool in like Japan or they've that Like was it my Man of Monan that was a yeah, the owl Man. Yeah, he was a like an owl creature from England that was like in a church in California for some fucking there. I mean there is an episode that that isn't the Mongolian Desert with the Mongolian deathworm? Yes, yes, yeah, that was another one that was transplant. Oh, and of course the the Iraqi vampires, right, yeah, the the vampires and the I guess it was it was Afghanistan, Iraq.

It's it's in the Middle East somewhere. Yeah, and they're just like fighting these vampires in a cave. Well, I mean a girl walks home Alana night, it's about Iranian vampires. Yeah, and that one's way better watch that, yeah, over any episode of the show. Well, and that's the thing, like there have been decent episodes of this show, but when you come to an episode like this, you just have to wonder, like we could talk about Poulter Geys, but the show doesn't even really talk about Poulter geys in like a serious way.

No, they don't even try, like they are very clearly just like they're telling this to rip off paranormal activity. That's any type of ghost, and paranormal activity isn't even a poulter Geist. Like it's it's like a demon, isn't it's a demon. It's not even a ghost. Yeah, it ends up being into convoluted demon problem.

But well that's what happens when you start giving things backstories unnecessarily, what happens when you get a franchise. Yeah, well that what people are like, we want you to start explaining things to us. It's like this episode, like did did we really need them finding all this information about a guy who died in the house? Like that? What?

What? Like that's now it's not a poltergeist because that's not even a poulter geist. That's like a I don't know what is that like a haunting. It's like a type of Amityville horror type right where it's like a you're like you're doomed to repeat the like same like yeah, the problem every time. But but in poulter Geist is even less of a ghost because it's pure chaotic energy, Like yeah, point where it's not even if you know, if Poulter Guy is surreal, and from what I learned from the movie poulter Geist and other research I've done on Poulter guys, they're less so like a ghost apparition that you would see and more so just like a ball of energy.

Yeah, it's like it's just it's it's like it just makes things move, right, It's like that Compulter Guys trip. You make you fall, bite, you scratch, you throw plates and shit at you. Like that's what Poulter guys are like, even the Poulter Guys movie. Yeah, kidnap your child from the TV and send them to another dimension exactly right, But they don't kill people. And that's what happens in this episode, Like oh my god, Like at the end of the episode, everybody gets murdered.

Yeah literally, like everyone, legit. I like, I guess kind of just gone off in my brain for a minute. And then all of a sudden night here and so and so and so and so and so and so and are all dead. Like yeah, no, that that it's you know, the episode being broken up the way it is. You have the cold open and then all of a sudden, it's like the paranormal investigators are there, and I like that.

I think that that framing device actually kind of works frankly, like it's smart you kind of break up the narrative into two pieces. But the characters of these parapsychologists that show up with their like Zach Bagan's esque show, right, Yeah, they're they're terrible and they're like they tell the family to leave and then they start looking around the house. They find, you know, newspapers, and then they're like, well, it's a poltergeist and then like two seconds later they're just dead. Yeah, And it's so bizarre because we come from the first season that was a bit more optimistic, where maybe one person died in this altercation and that's why there was some notice, but it was enough to sweep under the carpet.

The second season got a little gore show with it, so we were actually seeing some of the effects of these cryptids. Season three it is all off camera debts, like and it's a lot. It's an interesting escalation and it doesn't really focus on like the gore like the second season did, which was actually kind of charming in its JANKI way. Yes, pull it it's so weird. It's almost like they thought the concept was strong enough to hold itself, and it's like nobody cares about the characters.

We don't care about the characters. So they're dead. Isn't that spooky? And it's like no, yeah, And and you know what, I also don't understand, Maggie. Why where is the Enigma Corporation here?

Dude? They have been m Ia for a hot minute now two episodes? Now what is the Enigma Corporate? Boy? You missed a lot.

So so now there's a through line with all of this. There's a corporation that investigates files kind of. So in the zombie episode, they're like, okay, we know about this house where these strange things are happening. The Enigma Corporation is going to send some people in to handle it, right. And then in the second episode and the cracking episode is at the Saint No, it's not the cracking, it's this the vampires.

They're like, the Enegma Corporation is going to go in and we're going to figure out what's going on. And it's like these are inept idiots, is all they are? Yeah, they're just h Brownie Beefcake bullets and just yeah there there there's like a through line that like they're they're investigating some of these weird occurrences throughout the show. Are we supposed to believe they're real? Well, that's the thing, like the would you contend that the original premise of the show is that they're trying to convince us that these are real tapes, that the foot found footage, yes is real tape, right, And I think at this point they have forgone that.

It seems like it, yeah, because it very much feels like we're all we're all aware of the it's going with my assumption of the framing for like the first and second where we're going through files at this place, right, that's what's going on is they're just giving some mean potatoes to this stuff. Where the third season they're trying to embody that and instead of the person filing away stuff, they wanted the action packed people going out. But once again, if this is like our Supernatural A team, we're pretty fucked, Like well, yeah, I mean that's the problem, right, Like the Enigma Corporation, So the Enigma Corporation is not in this episode, but again, like it, I guess the stakes of this episode don't matter because it's just a one family being harassed by the ghost.

These paranormal investigators just dropped in their house. They're like, all right, we're out of here, selling the house and moving on. Like what Yeah, Like, I guess that's the only conclusion that this story could have, is that they move. Yeah. But to be fair, like the zombie episode was pretty isolated too.

There was only one footage where it was like an incident outside of the house, but then after that it is legit just two people that got infected within the house and that was it. Yeah. I don't Yeah, I don't know. I guess what would be the point of introducing the Enigma Corporation if they're not going to show up every time? Because you do have this now built in framing device for the show that you could just roll out every time.

It'd be like the Enigma Corporation, the Enigma even if it's like one of the people, they don't have to like have the whole regalia. It could like a by mission where they're just trying to keep an eye on this. They show up to help the other people. Like who knows if if the show is really leaning on following groups of people who are being called in to handle things, which looks like the way the show, at least in the last couple episodes has gone, right, then maybe have the Enigma Corporation actually be more present, right, given that you're doing it anyways, like why we have them out? It would make more sense to have the Enigma Corporation be the ones that go into invest to get anything from here on end, just having random goes time.

It's like the Kracking episode. I was kind of lightweight, hoping that the guy that was really standoffish about like going out there being like, no, I'm really into the treasure, it would like then turn around and be like sabotaging the whole entire mission because he was an idiot the whole fucking time, and be part of the Enigma Corporation because they knew the Kracking was out there. But of course I guess that's just like one level too deep for them, so never mind. And again, like they set up the episode where they could have just had to be those characters and it wouldn't have They would have had to do zero effort, even if they said the cameraman was part of the Enigma Corporation, like that's the easiest thing you could have fucking done, because you don't even have to see them.

Yeah. Well, and that's and that's what I don't And that's what I don't get about this version of the show at this point is do they not care? Like, I don't know if they. It's it's weird because like they've been given an opportunity now to do something different with the show and kind of make it into a little bit more of a horror show and kind of a horror narrative show, and instead of rising to the occasion, it seems like they're just letting it really stagnate. Yeah, yep, So was this the last season?

Yeah, this is the last season? Indeed? Shocking. I mean, I wonder if they knew that it was. They probably knew it was going to be the last season.

Maybe they just well, we're done. Here's some filler episodes by I guess, well, right, well that that's kind of what we mentioned on the last episode, was like maybe these were episodes left over from the last season and they just didn't have the Enigma corpse stuff, and so it's like, well, we made enough for two seasons worth the show, but we want to make you know, maybe some episodes didn't work, so we made a couple of new ones or we I don't know. I don't know. But it's weird because you introduced something and then you don't stick with it more than two episodes in and I think there's only like two or three more episodes this season, and there's ten in total. I think there are two more that have the Enigma Corporation, so four of the ten.

It's so weird. That's like, don't don't introduce it this late in the game, and don't not I don't know, don't don't not do it, like now you have the thing that you should have had this whole time, do it exactly? Do it like just to do it like I it's it's strange to me. It's facts. Yeah, well that too, but what I like, I mean for this, like they like brought him the news aspect of it, but but it wasn't fun.

But it wasn't actually interesting because they're just spouting bullshit like it's not a real Well that's the problem. I mean when you when you start talking about these kinds of things. I mean, when they're talking about vampires there, they were bringing up like vampire animal facts. It's like you did this on the last episode. Yeah, right, you can't do this Vampires of Lore, Like this isn't a lore show though, right, Like that's the problem.

That's the issue, like I've had with this show now since about halfway through the second season, is when you start introducing stuff like an alien, you have kind of lost sight of what made this show so exciting, I think for me and for you, Jess, and obviously for you as well, Maggie. Like what makes a show exciting is that you could do any cryptid you want, absolutely, yeah, anything and cryptids adjacent to all of this stuff, Like for the polter Geist, there were definitely cryptids that were like alleged to be spirits because they could just disappear or whatever. Bring Hill Jack yeah, or in the case of the alien, I'm going to keep bringing them up because it's such a cool urban legend. But the Grinning Man, he could qualify as a cryptid, Yeah, and an alien.

So two birds would stone? Yeah, And why not if you're doing a zombie episode, do like a brain parasite or something, or say, I mean Last of Us, Last of Us did court aceps? I know that that's like you know, can't do that now because last of us did it. But like there are other things you could have done, like make it a zombies sort of like mind controlled people but by something. I know.

It's just so I just don't understand why people, when given the opportunity to do something cool, don't rise to the occasion. Yes, they're playing it's safe and it's popular and we gotta get ratings. My god, I know, I know, and it's so it's so sad too, because like Poulter Guys could have I think we're I think I'm now at the point where like this is maybe the step too far for me this episode in terms of like in terms of like the subject material, like now we're past cryptids, like that's fairy, Like this is like spiritual stuff and the show has not really like the zombies. I think before this zombies were like close maybe Werewolf, but like zombie was close, and now Poulter Guys, I think is pushed.

I think it's pushed it over the ledge for me because like these are not cryptids. This is spirits like Endfield, Amityville, the Black Monk of Ponti Frack, Like you could have done any of those like you said, Maggie, you could have done a story of a poulter Geist, not a fucking like just a poulter Geist we invented, like right, that works on these rules because it us And you know what, as far as I'm concerned, if you want to do a fucking poulter Geist found footage, you can't. Ghostwatch did it better than anything. Ghostwatch is amazing, and it's found footage. It's like it's it's the kind of found footage that works, which is like the mockumentary style found footage thing.

Right, Yes, like that works better. You're in on the joke. You're not being overly serious to try and make everybody think it's real when I already you know it's not right. And if you do want to do I mean Ghostwatch, that's the thing. Like Ghostwatch was trying to make it seem real, but they assumed everybody knew that it was.

They were in on the joke. Everybody wasn't because of you know, bad timing and whatnot. But you know, yeah, yeah, but but paranormal activity is not trying to be real. It's trying to tell a scary story. Yeah, that's the problem with something like this episode, it's like, you're you're not even scary.

You're not even succeeding in being scary. You don't even go here, Yeah, you're not scary, Like you what am I supposed to do? Like be scared of a little kid or Portchell? And if you want to do that, then why not do the psychic little kid troupe? Yeah?

Well that's what I thought it was, right, like that like a telekinesis Like, uh, like, well that's what it was kind of setting itself up as, right, right, and that would be at least slightly more interesting because but then it's strays even farther away from the show I would continue. I mean, that's the thing, Like we're at the point now where like why are they attempting to stay within the bounds of the show, Just do whatever the hell you one. Frankly, at this point, I was kind of shocked that the third season of the show is still found footage, Like they're rights edging dangerously close to just being like we're just I mean, if there had been a fourth season, they may have just been like damn, yeah, it's just short exactly.

I Mean that's the thing, Like it is an anthology series on the face of it, well, especially now that they've if they've introduced an actual narrative device like the Enigma Corps, Yeah, can you've introduced the right which like and that would have been for me. It would have been like the way you do this shows. You have somebody like Jonathan Frakes doing the rapp arounds and he's like the person at the Enigma Corporation whatever talking about it like yeah, like there you go, like give us the money to make that show because you just take those two kinds of shows and stick them together. Yeah we found this and da da da, and then we'll be interrupting this broadcast. I mean literally, just take the alien autoposy thing that he did and just do it with something else, and you'll print money.

You'll print money because unsolved mysteries printed money. Still around on Netflix beyond belief factor fiction was around for like four seasons or whatever. Yeah, you know these and this, you know this show still has I feel like the show still has some not cachet, but I feel like this show kind of still needs to be talked about because there's nothing else like this still. Still there's nothing like oh and it's impressive the first and second seasons. Just the sheer amount of childhood trauma that it wrapped around.

It's like, oh it's fucking cool, and it had its dizzy charm. We may raz on it a lot, but those seasons were they had it a feel truly unique to itself. This is borrowing identities from other places, which is a little depressing. It feels very lazy at least the early seasons. While yes, it's still a very cheap in quality show.

You know, it's an animal Planet show. It's tried, but they tried and it worked and fit in the in that world. But now it's cheap kind of worked in its favor. Yeah, because having showing less and found footage is the key. Yeah yeah, oh yeah, yeah, well exactly.

I mean that that is that's the truth of the matter with something like this is more. Less is more, And if you're gonna show it, you better nail it because if you don't nail it, then it's just gonna look silly. And that's and that's this episode. Like at the end of the episode when it's like, oh my god, I mean confronted by myself or I like yeah, like or a version of the guy. I don't know what the hell happened at the end.

Is I guess the ghost of the guy killed them at the end. That I guess at least the ghost in paranormal like and demon and paranormal activity actually like kill people hard, Like these people just drop down a fright, I guess, right, right, which again, like even for this show, like that, that's such a cop out, Like they died of cardiac arrest. They were scared stick Like I'm like, hey, the little girl escaped from the chupacabra after watching her family get eaten by it, and she died. Yeah, like there have been She's not fine, But there's been plenty of instances in this show where people have come face to face with actual creatures and survived to tell the tale. Right then, in the beginning of the second season, that family fought a dead ass vampire legit, like well, it was like a it's like a from Dusk till Dawn vampire too, Like it was pretty like yeah, in the in the day in the desert of New Mexico, a vampire was chilling in their basement.

So yeah, as as you do. But like this, it's it's I think for me I think this this episode is like, the moment I was watching this episode, I just realized the show lost me was when it was like, now it's just trying to be Ghost Adventures. Adventures is on at the time too. It's not like Ghost Adventures doesn't exist, Like, yeah, Zach Bagins is I think a year into his show at least at this point by now, yeah, two years into his show. Yeah, Ghost Adventures was rolling in deep like at that point because that's what I was watching in lieu of like anything else.

And guess what Ghost Adventures is on Travel Channel? Travel Channel? Yeah, you bet your ass until it's on Discovery Plus. Now, of course you got to have somewhere for that puka shell wearing asshole to shell his wearing exactly. Grease up your hair, get your pukas.

Yeah. Yeah, I wear these glasses because a ghost made me see double. I love it. I love it them that them torturing their camera guy at any given moment, Right, you go in there by yourself, what holding a camera? You're already awkward and can't see it.

Yeah. I like how the guys I don't want to. It's like, dude, you're always going to you know, like Are you sure you don't want to you don't really struggling very hard here, Yeah, I mean you know that, like Maggie said, this episode and this season very much feels like it's borrowing for what from what's popular in culture in this realm at the time, Ghost Adventures Parentormal Activity found footage horror movies that aren't really found footage because they're a little bit too well edited and polished. I mean, the zombie episode, I would contend ripped off Doom directly. There's like a first person yeah.

Yeah, it's like a first person segment where they're like you could see the gun out in fronts like bang bang, yeah, yeah yeah. And I was like, this is this is lost tapes, this is what this show is now, Yeah, because like the whole point of doing this show was not to talk about the show. It was to talk about the creatures that the show talks about. But this is the first time when we can't even like, like, what do you want to Yeah, we talked about ghosts on this show eight million times, Like I don't think we talked about I don't think we've had an episode of the show go by where we don't bring up ghosts. In some form or fashion, right, Like, holy shit, this is a paranormal supernatural true crime mesh of a show, Like it's gonna come up, but like you've given us nothing to work with.

You don't care because you just said, yeah, paranormal activity exists, so let's just do that, right, Which I mean, like you said, Jess, it's most popular at the time, so I can't necessarily fault them for it. Yeah, I mean, the bottom line for them is they were just trying to get ratings, yeah, and people that was popular. Yeah, especially at this point in time, whether or not they knew they were getting canceled or not, right, Yeah, And I assume they were canceled, Like they didn't just plan to do just three seasons of a show. If they had actually planned all the seasons, it might have actually ended up better. Shockingly, little information out there about this show.

I've contemplated kind of reaching out to the people who worked on the show as we kind of near the end of the show to maybe like, yeah, I don't know, I mean, you know, let's put it this way. The people who were involved with the creation of the show have to like and or care about cryptids a small amount, right, at least, Yeah, at least I would hope anyway, right, because like again, I mean this show is I would hope that the show was being made by people who have a motivation, more interest. Yeah, the people who at least like create, who brought the show the creative pursuit of at least the challenge of writing for set cryptid because it seems like they just had a list of cryptids and just let people go hey wire with whatever script that they wanted to do.

Yeah, which success or fail regardless, it's an interesting feat of creative writing. So I would think that between that love of animals and just trying to dissect and explore this and frame it in a way that makes it seem real, like that was the nucleus of it. And I mean it's a bummer the way that it turned out now that we didn't shoo on the show this whole entire time for our own various reasons because we love it so damn much. But this one it's hard to comment on just because it's like, yeah, this is just this is knockoff X Y and C. Right now.

Yeah, the crack in episode I can at least say what it deviated from that we were actually talking about the subject pretty decently. Yeah, even if the joke was that all the water episodes felt the same, like this is this is just this If you told me what if you were like, hey, what show is this from, I would I don't think Lost Tapes would. I would be like, this is like a failed pilot for some like most adventure show, yeah, or like a knock Like I don't know what this like. I don't, I don't know. It's it's so strange because it's just it doesn't work in the it doesn't work in the framework of this show in multiple ways right now.

It reminds me of like when my dad was teaching at the university and people would turn in like projects for like them recording themselves as communication majors, so whatever. But like this is almost like you found a compilation of like college projects for a v department, and it's like impressive for these students to do in a week. But it's like not so much for a show that's in its third season. It is it's truly bizarre. I don't know what to expect, ever, which I mean, it's fun in a way if it weren't so bland in the execution.

If they dared to do one thing on a limb, I would be a lot more accepting of this, but they play it's so damn safe that it's hard for me to appreciate anything about it. Which I'm sorry guys if you do end up watching this, well, and again, like that's the thing with a tape, With a show like this, there is an expectation of what you're going to get, and I think in some ways it's met the expectation with some of the episodes. Oh, there's a big foot and there's a two pcabra, But then you have stuff like this where it's like you I'm not saying you couldn't have done noncrypted stuff. Frankly, I would have wanted some of that in there, just to be like, oh, here's this weird episode about this weird other thing, and that could have been that this episode could have, but because it's just so so generic, so just like full on cribbing from other things that again, I'm not going to sit here and say, oh, paranormal Activity is really good, but paranormal Activity is better than this, and paranormal activity is more successful than this.

Because Paranormal Activity was a script that had kicked around for a couple of years because it was a film that was made on a budget of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and that's all they were making, was that one thing. That's it. So there was no way that that it was either going to fail really hard or succeed really hard because everybody threw themselves really hard into it. This was never gonna be that. This was just gonna be exactly what it was, kind of a poor fact simile of something that again, your mileage is gonna vary with it, but it is verifiably better than this.

And I don't really like that movie that much. No, I saw it like I did the whole like oh when it first came out midnight. I mean, they're they're freaking advertising. Their advertising campaign was pretty damn effective with everybody like the Eye. Yeah yeah, Like I mean again, like we know, we I know why this is the way that it is because that was so successful because that was it was.

That movie cost about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to make and it made like two hundred million dollars. Yeah, yeah, like yeah, it's not yeah, it's not us. It's not a surprise. Why this is the way it is again, like the Zombie episode. Why were they ripping off Doom because Doom was successful?

Why were they ripping off Resident Evil because those things are successful because people know what they are. They have a point an easy point of reference. So oh yeah, yeah, yeah, well, welcome back Jess. But boy who sorry, the welcome parties kind of like the bed but that's the welcome wagons on fire. Just watch it roll on by.

That's all right, my life is on fire. I can joined it, joined the Poultergeist. So yeah, So on the next episode of the Lost Tapes, at least the next time you hear us talking about Lost Tapes, we're gonna be talking about Devil Monkey. Yeah, with my own personalized script, which will probably be better than what we get. Because like, again, do you haven't like I will say this every time until the end of the show, maybe you still haven't done Lockness?

Why are you doing this again? Please just do net Devil Monkey? All right? Like great, like what what is what is going on here? Like I'm I'm so unable to process how they didn't do Lockness Monster.

I still mind blowing in a way, like if you if you ask someone what cryptids, they know, the answer is always gonna be bigfoot, locknest or mothman. I think it's gonna be bigfoot or lockness or Yetti. But that's pretty much just bigfoot in a lot of ways. In the snow snow bigfoot, it's snowfoot, snowfoot. Yeah.

But but yeah, so but you know Poltergeist, Okay, devil Monkey, all right, it's not the first thing that about, No, not the first, second, or third, or even thirtieth, given this episode. Yeah, so until then, where can people find you? Jess? That's a great question, am I right now? Yes, you can find me on Instagram and TikTok writer Jess Byrd, because that's basically where I've been.

Hopefully I'll be here. I like TikTok. Don't give me that face. Oh no, I was just laughing at how just like you're just like I whatever, don't find me? I don't exist, right?

What about you, Maggie? Where can people find you? I truly don't exist? You guys can find me at my website Dolan Museum dot com, d O L I N and shout out to the people who have already reached out to me. Through my YouTube at Maggie the Odd really appreciate that and been hearing good things about this in the podcast, So thank you.

Wow really Yeah for udcast, we haven't done last tapes yet, but they watched a couple episodes with all of all of us in it and it was very nice. It was very neat. So oh yeah, that's a job lover with the sweet skull degree pleasant icon. Sorry, it took me four months to respond to you. Well you know what they say.

I'm not really used to people interacting so right, so I was. I was super jazzed to see that. When I hear other people like interacting with our audience, it's like yeah, yeah, all right, yeah, come on, people, share your script ideas, scream at us please. We just read of your laws tapes fan scripts. Yes.

Yes. As for me, c stashi dot com is my link tree go there for all the things that I work on. Jess and I work on a lot of stuff. Maggie and I have done plenty here and yeah, Maggie, like Maggie said, culture Cast all kinds of ship, more places than you would ever need to go. Yeah, well I'm glad you think so.

At least one of the fan before I was on, So here we are. And yeah, so as for this show, Scary Stories weetell dot com, Scary Stories wt on all the social media. But just listen to the show. You don't have to like interact. That shit's overrated because like they would you rather us make content or interact with you?

Like it's kind of I'm not saying it's a zero sum game here, but like there's only enough time in the day for one or the other. So but yeah, interact if you want, but just listen to the show, raid and review on iTunes all those things. Yeah, and I guess we'll let our good friend, the former host of Sightings, mister Tim White, lead us out. No mystery is closed to an open mind.