Lost Tapes Chronicles: Strigoi Vampire

Weird dude. This is Chris. I forgot the intro for this fucking show. Well, no, I know that full of science, sometimes people may things up in a world where people don't know any better. Where the hell are you really fired by the possibility?

The show is inspired by the possibility it could have been good. Yeah, I think we'll be fine without it. All right, Hello everyone, and welcome to say hell everyone. Welcome to law States, Welcome to a mistake. Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Scary Stories we Tell.

I am one of your hosts, Chris, and I am joined by two of the other hosts of this show, your friend and Mine artist among artists, Maggie the Odd and Chess, who podcasts and does other things from time to time. They do like direct movies. Yes, well assistant direct movies, but yes I do that. Take shy, you can own it. Yeah, as gonna say, like, you're still directing movies, bro, I mean, yes, fair, You've directed, even if it's assistant, directed more movies than I've even gotten close to.

See. Let's be on one this June. See you look at that? Yeah, there you go. On this episode of Last Tapes, we are talking about the third episode of the third season of the show all about the Strictgoy vampires.

So this episode aired October fifth, twenty ten, and it is all about the Strictoy. I guess somebody watched The Strain, huh, because yeah, that is that is exactly I'll like it. What is the time it was at the same time the Strain book came out, like two thousand and eight. I think, like it's it's a pretty old book. I feel like because the show wasn't until like twenty fourteen.

Yeah, maybe the book's not that old. Maybe I don't know. Like that's the other thing, like when I think about this, like that's the only thing that comes to mind is the Strain. Yeah, exactly. It's two thousand and nine, by the way, so I was off by a year.

Like it's it's like that old, Like it took six years or five years for the show to come out subsequent to the book. So but Stergoy are in two thousand and nine parlance, they're there, So this is twenty ten, so they they definitely read the book, or at least have knowledge of the book, one would think. But you know, they just really needed a filler episode and they were like, what thing can we do that's not exactly the same but also the same as something we've already done in this series? So many vampire iterations I second, second, or third, I think because the first episode of the second season was our vampire one, and that was the New Helm one, and I want to oh, and then there's the Iraqi uh like Banshee gals they vampires.

Oh there you are? Yeah, yeah, like there were vampires of the Cave right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, ramsacked Sonars. So yeah, I guess this is the third vampiric episode in Lost tapes. You know, no luck, but we got a load of vampire right Mmmm. This episode is is is Well, it features the Enigma Corporation, so we got one.

We got one. Yeah, it's not I don't understand what the strigoy are supposed to be in this episode. I don't either. I was trying to. I watched it earlier today and I felt like I had missed something in like the middle where there was no real there was yeah, there was no real conflict, and there's no actual description of what it is.

I mean it I guess it is. I mean in Russia or I'm not Russian Romani culture, the strigoy is more of like an undead thing rather than like a straight up vampire. Yet, Yeah, the vampire aspects are that, yes, you can be turned into one if you are bitten by it, but that's it's it's kind of also like a super zombie too, a super smart zombie. And they describe it in the show as being something that can like it can turn into different animals, it can be invisible, it has super speed and super strength, and those are all yes, and in they go with the Romani tradition of what struggle I can do. But ultimately it's it's like it's a predator.

It's the predator, right, I mean cool abilities. It just depends on what class you're running. And nobody waiting for somebody know that that dead air was me smiling to myself about making a vampire. The masquerade reference. That was me realizing what it was but having nothing to say other than knowing that's what you were referencing.

Did you put poison up because that? Yeah, thank you for participating, everybody. I don't understand why we needed another vampire episode past the first one. Yeah, the first one was actually well, okay, no second because the first one was the cave vampire. Let's just say vampire definition vampire.

We didn't need more than one true true because there's a lot of weird repeats in the in this whole series. But I think the vampire one was well overkilled. I would have liked to see them tackle, like maybe redo the werewolf one. There's so many werewolf adjacent things that would have been interesting for because that that first one was such a hot fart in a car. It was bad.

Well, and I mean again, I feel like we're missing the point here with this show, the people making this show. This is not about these kinds of things. And yeah, and the farther the longer the show has gone on, the further it's gotten away from like acryptid yeah, or even the animal facts. I missed my animal facts. They did a vague whispering of that.

But once again, if it's not encrypted, it's kind of hard to be like, oh, yeah, this could exist. It's like it doesn't, right, Yeah, it absolutely doesn't. And honestly, this whole episode with the Enigma Corp, it just feels like they're just trying to make their like a video game cut scene with every with every uh, and the Saint the first time we have brought that. No, the zombie episode has that first person shit too, and it was real bad there too. And to the point where I'm like, are the people that are doing the voice over the horrible a dr voiceover for each of these cutaway scenes we have here are they?

Are they video game voice actors? Because they sound like it sounds like a video game first person. Yeah, they're around the corner about five steps ahead. What's outing? I get them shoot them in the head right also the middle Also, I really I know this is jumping ahead, but again to jump around, here's eighteen minutes episode thinking eighteen minutes nothing episodes.

The fact that now we have a show where like they're like pulling out guns and shooting at these things, It's like it just feels very oh whatever. It feels very counterintuitive to what the show's vibe was those first two seasons really, which was a show that was in congruence was being on the animal round footage. It was fucking straight up round footage too well, to your point, Jess, like, it really felt like, oh, it's just people going out. I'm like on a camping trip or on a thing and it's like they're running into wild animals because they're out in the animals domain. Now it's like, what is this fucking show?

Like, Yeah, the whole the whole setup for this, because we haven't said it at all, is what it opens up with two guys just throwing a football around being all cash at their oil job. I guess they've seen the room and behind them one of their trucks are slowly rolling away to reveal that the guy in it is like pass stout or dead whatever on the wheel and they can't figure it out. And what I don't understand, And maybe maybe I wasn't paying attention enough, maybe I don't know enough about strigoy, But if it's a Strigoy attack, isn't it going to leave some sort of like mark, like physical wound. But all these people like because the whole setup is that they get played off by the news and the government that it's just some toxin blah blah blah that's like killing people, and they have to quarantine the towns and nobody can go in and nobody can go out, and everybody who gets quote unquote killed until they get to the actual like we get to see the vampire in it.

All of these people are just dead like with no injury at all, until we get to the one singing in where it's revealed that one of the people has been bitten by a Strigoya is now one of them and is like ripping someone's arm off. But I don't know, they're very dosctile. Yeah, like it well, And what I don't understand is what is what are the vampires? Are they just? Like?

Is this just a vampire like Dracula? Then? Is there more than one? Like? What is going on here?

Are they in the like sandstorm? Are they using the standstorm for cover? Like? I'm having a hard time understanding because the episode gives us effectively nothing to work with, right because in the Romanic legend, most of the times Tregoyer is associated with like an undead spirit and like misfortune and bad energy essentially, and they are creatures that are born of that and usually like from dead bodies. But right, so in this setup at this you know, oil wherever, with these contractors working there, I don't, I don't know, it doesn't make sense.

They don't give any indication that they're you know, maybe there's a burial ground or something around that has generated these you know, upset spirits or what I do anything of this rate because they haven't been afraid to do stretches before right in their plots. So it's like this is ultimately this one is absolutely fake. So you could either either do it justice and actually talk about the romani like tradition on it, or if you're going to do this, then lean hard into it and make it at least fun. Well, and that's the other thing I mean to your point, just the bulk majority of the episode is just people finding dead people and going, what's going on here? I don't understand how entertaining, how how how fun?

What a fun way to present us with the story of the Strigoe by having people just wandering around looking at people with like how like pancake makeup on like white packcacup, Like it's it's not even anything. They're not even doing anything like it's it's strange to me how little effort there is here. It almost feels like they could have just said this was anything until there's like a vampire on screen. It's kind of just okay, we never yeah, we don't see it because they use the whole invisibility like they may get known to make sure to say the invisibility saying up front, like early on in the episode, so that they can get then get away with the entirety of the episode almost not showing anything because they shoot the trink then at the oh and it was a dog at one point too in the episode, right, it takes over the dog.

And this is the thing is they talk about it as if it's possessing things, but I don't. I don't really think that's what Strugoy are doing. I think they're there, their entities created. It's like in Japanese culture with with ghosts, where they come out of really bad ways to go right, Like it's the whole unfinished business kind of thing. From what brief you know, rundown I read of the Strugoy is in that similar vein is that they are associated with misfortune and trauma and things like that.

So I don't understand what we're going for when all we're ostensibly getting is this thing that's just running around killing these people, which yes they say that you you know, they have to eat people to sustain their energy or whatever. But I wasn't on the last two Vampire episodes, and so for this to be the third one. It does kind of feel like they are acknowledging that they've done three vampire episodes and they are not giving it a lot of effort here well, and the last vampire episode, the one where it's the vampire in the new House, it's it's kind of like this episode. It has like a like a Southwestern or like like I think that one's maybe setting like Colorado, and this one. This one's setting like New Mexico obviously, so it's like it's the same field too.

It's like desert vampires. Even like I don't understand, like why are we talking about a stragoy in New Mexico? Right, I guess, but like it's so weird because of all the things like this should have been like the Chupacabra episode. Yeah, it's gonna reduce something like you're in New Mexico. Do skin Walkers again?

Better though? Alien? Yeah, New Mexico. Come on, now, I don't understand. This is like right there, it's like within reach all you gotta do.

It's just like reach out and grab it, Like why are we doing a strigoy. It's one of those times where I feel I overthought it a bit too much on like not on like resolving to not do certain main ones that have been done, although they do other main ones that have been done, and it feels like they tried to like, Okay, well we're gonna do Strigoy because it's not quite vampire. It's different enough, I guess, but we're actually not going to talk about the actual you know what. It's just very far Yeah, because yeah, Chris, you're you're dead on when it's like, no, I missed the cryptids. This is absolute nonsense.

This is a whole grab bag of stuff that sure makes a cool story if you put in the effort, but we got neither cool story nor cryptids. So it feels like a bit of a cop out. Well, and ultimately, I mean the other thing is, I mean, this is the kind of show that belongs in something like Shutter. If this is what you're gonna do, Like sure, if you're gonna do like vampires and zombies and like, then just go make a horror show. Like there's nothing wrong with that, but don't take something that stands on its own in a second season that I think you would agree Maggie's pretty good.

Like the second season in the show is pretty good. That's probably the most memorable. Like when you look at YouTube compilations and like reviews, the second season seems to be like what people remember from their childhoods that they really fell in love with that show with, Like it has some really great moments that could be standalone movies. As much as we've razed on them, I would sit down and watch it again, absolutely, But yeah, this one, it's really sad to kind of see it flatline like this when there were still so many options that they could have gone with. And like, the Enigma Corp is like a fun little plot thing just to kind of keep the ball rolling, but it seems like they either overutilize it in some episodes and severely ignore it in others.

It's very hit or miss. It could be a cool tool if they would use it a little bit better, but I think it's just a straight up miss on this one. It's one of the least memorable episodes out of a bunch of like episodes. Giving someone two fake fangs and some white like white context is not enough. They went They went like a half ass Buffy route, Like I could see the Buffy inspiration in there with the eyes and the like they build out the brow a little bit like it was a chanty, but not enough for it to like stand out obviously, right, so like I can see it going there, but they yeah, it feels very much like an Okay, we have ten minutes to show this vampire.

Hurry up, get the makeup on, and let's go to lunch. Like's well, and they cheat. I mean they cheat because there's a standstorm. They cheat because, like you mentioned, the vampire, the Striggo is invisible. They cheat because the Striggo I can turn into animals.

I mean that's a power of the strigoy. Because again, maybe that's it. Maybe we crack the code because they had no budget where they had to pick things that they didn't actually ever have to commit to. See God damn. I mean we've had that before with the Water episodes.

I mean, Maggie, you and I talked about that plenty, and yeah, there at least there was some sort of weird thematic thing going on, Like I do hate the repeat Water episodes, but like, dude, you're on land, come on just a little bit more, a little bit more well, And what I ultimately don't understand is you have the enigma Corporation. You have two characters that again should have been showing up this entire season, and this is what the second time we've seen them, because they were in the zombie episode, and I don't have a sense of who they are as characters, and I don't think that the show actually cares about doing that either. They're also not good at their job. Sounds they really have terrible judgment.

They don't lend in in a crop, they pull their gun out at the first sign of danger. It's like if the initial like I still am going with my headcannon. I like the fact that the first two seasons it feels like some guy just sitting and going through these tapes just to record down the stories. If like the Enigma Corp. Is anything connected with this plot line where it's like, no, we find these tapes and now we're in too deep, so we have to seek these things out so that we can find them and whatever.

That's like the furthest development that they've got is these people are now actively seeking these things and recording themselves. But it doesn't make sense, what are you doing? Are you just putting them in a bunker and calling it a day. Are you rehabilitating them, Are you adopting them? No?

All of them suck. So the or is so dumb. It's just a nice through plot to make it convenient, where if whoever got the assignment can't think of anything original, they can just slap the Enigma corp in and be like, all right, they're going in so that they can just get away with a plot line that's nothing but who done it's with no clues and then shooting whatever it is at the end. Yes, I don't understand why killing the things is now part of this Like right, it's like you don't want to preserve its animal planet, shouldn't you at least like right, get some fucking captain planetisms in there. Well, I mean they trained to tranquilize the stergoy and then we get the scene where the guy spits the tranquilizer dart out good man.

It's what I ultimately don't get is why the show has changed between the second and third season so much. If it was like a group of people came in and said, all right, we want to do something different with the show, I get that. But if it's the people that were working on the first and second season to the show they really lost their way. No, I swear it has to be a corporate nonsense call, because I mean, thinking back on the time that these episodes came out, we did have a weird segment of horror films that were coming out too. Well, it does just feel very Yeah, it feels like the producers of the show wanted to capitalize on what was happening in the time.

And at the time it was two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine, twenty ten, we are you know, the height of an Iraq conflict, and there's a lot of you know, Call of Duty is super fucking popular, and all of these things that they're trying to also likely trying to attract a younger audience, right, Well, that's for certain Animal Planet is one of those channels that you know, it's it's audience doesn't maybe back in the day, but not now, And certainly, you know, not at that point was skewing older, and I'm sure that an older audience wasn't as into this type of show, and in order to try and draw new viewers to the you know, Animal Planet other programming, it feels like they're trying to capitalize on that.

Like this whole episode feels like a you know, a z be add on to call of duty, right, like throw in some Nazis and there you go. Everybody's well. And I I mean, I agree, it's it's very clearly being influenced by the things that are popular at the time. For whatever everybody else is watching. I mean, you know, Animal Planet.

I don't even know who the Animal Planet audience is, like people who accidentally wandered into that channel, Like I don't didn't know either. I don't get it, Like if it's just a repository for showing footage of animals, like great, is that what it is? Like if that's all it is? Awesome? Like like I feel like when I was a kid, you know, I did watch a lot of Animal Planet, and a lot of it was for a while, I was like Planet Earth and Blue Planet and all those things, and that got people really into watching those type of shows.

And what I also watched, you know, it kind of was like the Travel Channel also, but with animals, and so I think it's like the Travel Channel, the History Channel, an Animal Planet or all basically the same audience like event diagram, like it all just kind of filters in well. It was also a point in time, I mean, like historically speaking as far as like television viewership goes, like the almost Golden Equation is trying to get the teenage audience in oh and so like at that point in time, they had like hard and fast, this is what teens are going to watch, So we're going to incorporate that so that we not only have people who like to stare at cool pictures of animals, we get the older crowd that just likes learning cool science see facts, but now we have the teenagers with all this whacking nonsense.

So yeah, it just smacks of a weird corporate decision to try and get that teen audience thing. It's the same with Disney where they had like open up a bunch of dance clouds and ship where it's like really okay, well, and in two thousand and eight, Animal Planet rebranded and they were trying to be edgier, right, go for like an edgy or like a more like we've said, a teen audience. And this show, I mean, this show doesn't get mentioned a lot in terms of things starting in all that on Discovery Channel, but Shark Week used to be just you know, a cool, just science kind of week of really interesting Shark shows, and now it is everything is fake. Almost every single show on Shark Week is mostly fake because it comes to this kind of idea that this show shows in this sort of like I'm gonna we're gonna do a very base level edgy horror animal show.

Essentially, we're gonna make it like a horror movie to draw the kids in animal show. Yeah in quotation adjacent. That for me is the most frustrating thing here is watching the show that I've been enjoying just really pivot in a way that, like the original show, fine if it doesn't get that audience, fine, but don't change the show so much that the audience that is enjoying it doesn't recognize it, right, And that's what's happened now. Like strigoys are interesting, but it's just a vampire. Like, it's just a vampire adjacent thing.

And I'm not saying that because it's not interesting. I'm saying that because they don't make it seem like it's anything else other than that. They don't even make it seem like it's anything other than just a vampire pretty much. Yeah, they barely look, like I said, they don't touch on anything really about like the myth of the Strugoy. They don't really talk about it at all.

They just do a basic rundown of like what a Stugoy quote unquote is and what its powers are, basically just giving you the stats for the monster that you know, our little video game heroes are going to come through and die and can I can I ask a question? Why did they survive? It was like, oh, and they both survived. They're encountered with the Strugoy. Like well, okay, sure, it's so yeah, so Enigmacorp can continue with these two characters, but like why, just why right?

Because they never commit to ending mccorb actually being a through line story. It just pops up in there and then later they were fired, Like okay, well, I don't under What I don't understand is like we've had all these episodes where random civilians have just been gored and murdered by these monsters and then these two gun tote and people survive and they're fine, and it's like, but they were literally in close contact with a vampire to the point where the vampire had to have like bitten that lady on the neck while I was sitting behind her like, I don't I don't understand. It's such it's such a weird nothing burger of an episode, it really is. There's just nothing to it. Yeah, and why no lockness?

We say it every time? Why no lockness? I just don't get it, Like, of all the things to not include in your show, right, yeah, well who knows the blackness is copywritten? There's no story there. What are we going to do with lockness?

Right? Yeah? What what would be the point of telling that story? Right? Why not the Bermuda triangle?

Yeah, I don't like it a triangle episode. I don't get it. Like there were enough, there were enough things that they could have done that weren't just cryptids that are like phenomena, Like you could have done the outlov pass, Like you could have done plenty of things you just chose to do, oh vampire, zombies and werewolves. Fucking come on, thank you? Oh my.

And that's the thing like this episode, like you mentioned, Maggie, I've I've seen those people on YouTube, you know that are that have covered lost tapes. They only talk about the third season if they're clowning on it. Eat Yeah, sadly right like that? I mean, you know, like the third season of this show is really not great. They got ambitious, they got weird, and it wasn't a good weird.

No, it's just like a complete, a complete random direction that doesn't that doesn't speak to what this show is, which is a show about cryptids like the Strigoy. Again, like they don't do the Strigoy justice, and that's the biggest problem more than anything else. Like even Gamo del Toro is the strain doesn't really do Strigoy justice, but at least it makes Stragoy scary. Yeah right, this doesn't have any interest in actually being scary. This is like Halloween dress up down at the local spirit Oh god, it's like grade schoolers putting on a haunted house.

That's the use your imagination because you don't get to see the thing. Nothing scarier than pancake. And it's all in broad daylight. Also yeah, oh well, not that it has to be dark to be scary, but if you're not gonna they're with a Strigoy and what they were doing and needed to be like a suspense type scary, right, like you don't know where it's gonna be or what it is. It is like a thing situation, but just no.

We're just running around in the open desert and broad daylight, just yelling at each other. Look over there is My favorite was when they're like, it's in the air, don't take your helmet off. Oh my god. They had to do that scene where they're like, I'm not going to take my helmet off. I don't believe that you'll be dead in a Minute's like, okay, all right, fine, Why does the Enigma Corp?

Think it? Like the Enigma Corp. I guess thought it was like a disease or something like a like an airborne disease. It's so weird, Like I don't get it either because it's a toxin. Because some people are showing up without any incident on their body, they're just dead.

And then other people are showing up mangled. So just too much non explanation for either of those things. Too much going on. They wanted a Mulligan creature, and they wanted to utilize all of its cool superpowers, and it just got real money, including but not limited to the fact that you can't see it exactly, which is, oh my gosh, man, why don't you just be speed racer at that point? It's the best it's the best thing is when you can't see something.

I mean, as far as I'm concerned, that's how you keep the production quality at zero. Oh no money spent, guys, because they just can't see it. So many cheap animation that can tell you that that works out so well for them. That's why they're still around today. I wish that we had some more positive things to say about some of the season of the show, but it's not interesting choices.

I can at least give props where like the rights get real creative. They don't succeed, but at least there was a risk in Paul, this one terribly is an example of something that didn't really have too much going for it and it shows, which is such a shame. Yeah no, I mean, like you can try and fail, but at least you tried. This is just failing, just flailing and failing really because you gave up through the project and just left it. Animal Planet folks, whatever, Thanks Rip.

How does your rebranding do for you? Well, that's the thing. I mean, they rebranded in twenty eighteen to be more focused on what they were initially, which is like, you know, family focused programming and programming that the whole family can enjoy. Yeah. Yeah, the edgy content is gone quote unquote, but I don't know if it was ever needed.

I mean again, like I like Lost Tapes, but you know this is like the first two seasons were Animal Planet, but the third is like, okay, now we have lost our way. Officially it didn't take very long, but we did. So yeah. Show On that note, on the next episode of Lost Tapes, we'll be talking about Poultergeist, which is also shockingly not encryptid. Who would have thought, I know, I just yeah, from from one Eastern European thing to a German thing, neither of which are cryptids.

But fine, okay, we'll go with that right until then. Jess, where can people find you on the Internet. You can find me on Instagram at writer Jess Byard. You can also find me at weirding Way Media, where I do some other podcasts with Chris and Maggie. We I am occasionally on the Culture Cast, where we're talking about different movies each episode.

You can also find our other show, one, Oh, My Lord and Hue Show, where we talk about yeah that shows that last for one season, yes, and other things. So go for it. Chris where can we find you weird Ingway Media dot com. That's where you can find me. Jess already mentioned it.

No nowhere else what if I know Maggie, you can find me on Instagram and TikTok at Dolan Museum and my website Dolan Museum dot com. It's a bunch of nonsense. Come and check it out. And as for this show, Scary Stories, we tell dot com Scary Stories wt on all social media. Big thanks as always too.

Well, Maggie, you're here so we can thank you in person. Why thank you for the album artwork? No, thank you, and to Dustin for the album artwork as well, so we can thank everybody all at once. And to Alex melnacka Blondo who if you're in the Midwest you can find him touring. But if not, go to Spotify and look up blond.

No, as always, will let our good friend, the former host of Sightings, mister Tim White, lead us out. No mystery is closed to an open mind.