Haunt Weekly - Episode 407 - Lagniappe

[0:24] Hello everyone, I'm Jonathan I'm crystal and this is haunt weekly a weekly podcast for the auto detraction entertainment community Whether you're an actor owner or just plain aficionado. We aim to be a podcast for you, And we return to you this week with a potpourri episode. Yes, in fact, I may just call it potpourri, Save myself some time and go back to my jeopardy roots when I used to actually watch jeopardy a lot. Yeah, Potpourri or lanyard or lanyard something like that because this is actually an episode coming to you in well, More than four parts before big parts at the end. Yeah, not counting these smaller parts We have before the part that is to this parts. There's a lot of parts, So yeah a lot of weird stuff coming at you But if you want to check out more of what we do, you know where to find us Haunt Weekly.com, Haunt Weekly on Twitter, Haunt Weekly on Facebook, youtube.com Facebook.com slash all weekly is a great way to stay on top of things. Not many people use it. You'll be like the only one there It's kind of neat You can also catch us wherever podcasts are distributed and pay special attention to facebook.com slash all weekly That's where we schedule the occasional live show and we have guests on. Yeah, probably not until after October Yeah, it's gonna be a while. I don't wanna make any promises until November, but yeah, we were working on some stuff, So yeah.

[1:40] All right, so starting off with work. We did on our hot work is definitely ramping up for us, We don't open for the record until the weekend before Halloween the 27th The 27th 28th and 31st this year's our date, So we still have a lot of time for our opening for us, but work has been ramping up consistently, I've been focusing very heavily on the digital stuff. Yeah.

[2:05] One back we're gonna go over one of the items in one of the parts actually It is talking about yeah, it's gonna be kind of nice, but we've also been taking new pictures updating the Facebook updating the website, Stuff that we really should have been done a while back, but we didn't do so we're getting caught up on that, We're all we need to get some additional photos. We took photos of the new Bernie mask, Yesterday they did not quite work out not because the mask is bad or the photos are bad But because we didn't really create recreate the look we were going for the pose and everything We just kind of winged it, but now we have a better idea what we need to do, So we've learned from our mistakes. We'll be retaking those probably tomorrow or tonight if we have a bug up our ass. Who knows?

[2:52] Other than that, we're finishing up demolition inside the haunt.
I think demo is done.
The main thing is that we've got one big build and one final put in place.
It's moved to the right place. It's kind of in place, but our garage is unlevel, like severely unlevel.
So at the front of the garage, there's a two-inch gap and a wall that is square, and square against the wall. And then there's a quarter inch at the back.
And this has always been that way in the time we've owned this building for the record.
This is not like, don't worry about it being, oh, dear God, it's sinking.
No, this is actually old news to us.
We've actually known about this problem since pretty much 2006 or 2007, when we took ownership of the building.
It's just always been that way. And it's kind of a weird, natural thing that happens a lot in New Orleans, is buildings have, after they're built, have an initial weird settling period.
And this garage, let's just be frank, it was not built to the best of standards.
And so I'm not surprised it went under with that, but it has not moved further is the the point I'm trying to get at.

[4:03] So everything's fine there. Yeah, we've been doing reassembly. Everything's looking good. Everything's come together according to plan, And we're actually doing it smart and building an intelligent order this time around starting from the back and building forward, And so that big build she just talked about is actually toward the front of the haunt that may be something we don't really touch.

[4:23] Until october until october but That said, uh, we will probably be spending some time this weekend on the yard display, Yes, because the our display is gonna be a little complicated, but it's gonna be a lot of fun I'm really really excited about this and I'm really look. I'm hoping the temperatures drop just a little bit more, Yeah, because because right now I think it's actually gonna be more comfortable to work in the yard than the haunt, Because the haunt is hotter Than the yard, but I also I maybe it'll just be fucking overcast, you know Maybe we'll get a break from that direct Sun a little bit. I mean, it's New Orleans It's supposed to be cloudy and damp all the time. It has not been delivered We've not been getting the promised New Orleans weather lately. It's been hot. It has been dry We've been under fucking burn bans of all things. Yeah, I don't think I've lived in this town now since 2002 I live here over 20 years. I don't think we ever had a burn ban in summer, No, not one that lasted more than a day. Yeah, and the reason is because, Normally in New Orleans it rains every fucking day in the summer at about 3 p.m 3 p.m. Because such a fucking you used to be able to say you're fucking watch by it Don't tell me climate change ain't real man. I'm fucking seeing it.

[5:33] All right moving on. Yeah, so we got a lot going on there Do stay tuned facebook.com slash on weekly. We're likely be posting some of the new Bernie photos Yeah, the new Bernie video, Well, maybe posting the story you'll be doing in a little bit a lot of Bernie stuff will become especially see what we're working on, as we're sharing it out on our haunt channel and also if you want to follow our haunt directly we've never actually pimped it to this audience because yeah, It's not really a point, but it's Bernie Baxter Haunt on Facebook.

[6:05] So check it out. All right. Well every week we ask a question in the week and last week We ask what is your favorite character to play?
And honestly y'all this is a good time to go back to facebook.com slash hunt weekly and check out the post there A lot of great images and a lot of fun stuff was shared there But let's see what the nice people said, Tim fowler said dr. Diablo Love that name, Uh, greg packard said the swamp cowboy and I want to applaud greg for going back and correcting his misspelling, Because it originally said the Swamp Cowboy and that put some interesting visuals in my head and now it's out there forever, It was just so funny and it was so perfect But no the Swamp Cowboy is Greg Packard and the mask and all it looks really fucking cool, too Yeah, like if you asked me what a Swamp Cowboy would be I probably would have described something very similar to that. Yeah, Amanda Hughes said played a doll for years was spiders victim last year and loved it and that is one thing I would say if you if I'm not saying this was what Amanda was going through by the way But if you're finding yourself struggling to get your love for haunting back, maybe consider being a different character, Yeah, maybe consider mixing it up doing something if you play a victim a lot, maybe go be a, Psychopath, you know, maybe do something different shake it up. It can really help, Sarah pretty said little doll crisis at dark side acres is.

[7:28] Which I I'm hoping I said that right, like, all of it.
And the last one dr. Hooded himself that is such a cheat by the way, I'm just gonna respect mad respect But you've been in character keeping in character, but the post from your characters Facebook profile on that question That's that's clever. All right. Well this week's question of the week. What last-minute thing has you the most worried?
Everything?
Yeah, I think... All of it? All of it? Oh, no!
For those of you keeping tally of the repo of the genetic opera references in this podcast, please up that by one at this time, or actually probably two, I think that one might be two.
But no, right now, see the thing is, I was thinking about this last night as I was writing these notes.
We're actually not further behind than we usually are this time of year.
I know, it just feels like it because it's such a mess still.
Well, here's the problems, and I was thinking about it. One is we're older now.
Yeah. We both have health issues, we both aren't moving as fast, that's one.
Two is we haven't done a full build since 2018. Yeah, that's the thing that's freaking me out.
Is like, we haven't had this experience in a while. We've forgotten a lot. Yeah.

[8:51] Because, you know, like I said, 2019 road closure, 2020, 2021, take a fucking guess.
2022, we opened 2019's haunt.
Yeah. We had a built haunt that year, pretty much. We only had to do a few tweaks and changes to be ready.
So yeah, this is our first complete build in a long, long time.
And it's scary, but we have been further behind than this and pulled it out easily.
Yeah, and I know that it's gonna, it'll work out Because even if I have to like...
Bust butt and work literally late hours on the weekends before, it'll get done.

[9:31] And we're also, one of the things we didn't mention about haunt work is that I have reached out to a new actor pool and hopefully we'll be able to get some new actors. Yeah, I'm really excited about this potential new partnership we have. Won't talk any details, some of it's semi-public but not like super public yet. So we're still working on it but, yeah this partnership could be really great for us. And the other advantage we have is this year even though we're changing up everything 90 plus percent of what we're doing is just moving around existing infrastructure we have.
Yeah and we're kind of going back to our roots with putting in multiple scares per actor yeah so that if we don't have this deal come through then we still can operate a haunt and it still be scary yeah I think it's gonna be fine but yeah I'm like you it's a little bit worrisome just because we haven't really been here in a while yeah like we've lost some of our edge because it used to be we would get to this point and be like now we're gonna work till 2 a.m. every night Brother and we're gonna get up and go to work next day. And then hey, no, we're not gonna do that anymore Hey, we can't because the heat is still yeah, Yeah, it's not hot. Yeah. Um, even at night. It's crazy.

[10:54] Like legitimately it doesn't get below like 75 at night and it's over. No lately. It hasn't gotten below 80. That's just crazy.

[11:02] So anyway, but yeah, that's what's worrying us So what is the last-minute thing that's worrying you if your haunt has just opened or is opening soon?
Let us know at hauntweekly.com, hauntweekly on Twitter, hauntweekly on Facebook, YouTube.com slash Hunt Weekly and of course wherever finer podcasts are sold.
Before we get into it. I'm just gonna send a shout out Congratulations to Niles Scream Park for having the hunters against hate night with Jates and all the lovely fellows all the guest actors Guest actors extraordinaire. I've been seeing the photos trickle in, multiple Super jelly, It looks awesome, it was an awesome time. Yeah. Congratulations all for a successful a successful combination of forces.
Yes.
The Voltron of haunting. I'm surprised you didn't create a black hood with all the haunting goodness.
Yes.
All right. All right. Now getting into it. Now getting into this week's episode.
I know we're 10 minutes, and like I said, parts upon parts.
Yeah. This is going to be a potpourri episode. We've got a lot of little topics we've been wanting to talk about, or we want to talk about now, but none of them really equate to a full episode. So we're gonna spend you know 10 ish minutes on each one hopefully or probably the last one will be the longest it'll probably get a little additional time but yeah so we.

[12:29] Got a potpourri thing going on. Yeah and also the other problem is with haunt work going on we don't have as much time to really like craft detail show notes. So this is a chance to just talk about the little odds and ends and go through it all. So topic one, UNO, is the retail stuff. Yeah, because used to we would go and we hit all the stores and we would do one giant episode but now, we've been kind of trickling that out. Yeah, so this week we visited three places. Michaels, Party City, and Big Lots. And Michaels, see going to Michaels now is late, but we're in an unusual situation. Right. Because we're in a big city and The Michaels that's nearest us is next to an ale salon, which is in between, Barnes and Noble on the other side and basically the nail salon caught fire. Yeah, and, Basically the Michaels had to close for like six fucking months. It was a long time, It was a long time. I don't know how long it was months. It was months They closed because they had to basically pull all the stock out, Clean it because a huge smoke damage. Well, it's a lot of it just got chonked Yeah, but they had not gotten in their Halloween shipment whenever the fire occurred Yeah, So they got that after they were able to receive shipments again and had a full entire stock because they just reopened this week Yeah, they literally just reopened this week. Um, I gotta say the prices were fucking nuts on the whole.

[13:57] Yeah, it's just what we expect. I mean, they're doing the Joanne's gambit of we're gonna have these insane prices $100 was more than $100 for a skeleton 125 there and then we're going to offer insane looking discounts that make the prices almost sane yeah in some cases but not all uh but yeah i mean there was some cute decor and some cute things and there were some things that with the discount that was 40 off everything blanketly when we were there, but there were some things that were like decently priced but on the whole it was just expensive and and nothing that really caught her eye.
Yeah, there was a couple of wooden cutouts that I really kind of want, but I'm gonna wait on those.
But like every idea we had, like a good one you had was, they had those little wooden paintable coffins.
Yeah. And they had them fairly cheap, but they can be found much cheaper online or elsewhere, and it's the exact same ones.
Yeah, and that's what I'm gonna do for my brand. Yeah, her yarn dyeing brand, Chris's Coffin is what she's been doing for a while and she's selling stitch markers.

[15:05] Which will be coming in tiny little painted coffins. Yes, it's gonna be cute. I think it's gonna be very interesting Uh party city a when the fuck did we get party city back?
I don't know because it's kind of weird. There was a party city in this exact location, For years, then they closed and they moved way up to the other end of the road, which basically like this is manhattan boulevard It's a big long difficult to travel road, Yeah it's lots of miles and lots of cars. You don't want to drive up and down it if you can avoid it is the basic problem. It's a lot of traffic. And so we basically stopped going to Party City because now it was in a very inconvenient place for us. But they were back in their old location just poof!
Like I have no idea this one has happened. No sometime in the last month because we were over there recently. Yeah we were there. This is actually our second Time to big loss, which we'll get to next. Yeah, but the first time they didn't have the Halloween stuff out yet. Yeah, I gotta say I'm disappointed in Party City when I think Party City Halloween. I immediately think of the giant wall of fucking costumes Yeah, pick item number three six two off the wall and get that for me, you know, give me that That's what I think of they don't have that. No, he's not at this one. I don't know about others But at ours, they did not have it. They just had the costumes on racks and I grant they had a lot of costumes They did and there were some really interesting and cool ones, especially for kids.

[16:33] Yeah The thing about the costumes there was they were all about the same price, Yeah, they were all like between 25 and 50 dollars most in the 30 to 50 range, But here's the thing that meant yeah, there were some like that's just a sexy cat costume. That's like five bucks at Spirit Yeah, you're selling it for 30, but then there were some real art huh five at Walmart. Yeah spirit. Well, it's true But it's like 15 at spirit It's oh, yeah, But then they had some really interesting costumes like a clown with like these artificially long arms, Some inflatable costumes that were actually reasonably priced I could see the justification for that, So if you need a costume that is unusual or you have an unusual idea I say check out party city We didn't buy anything. No their decor their animatronics looked super cheap and were way overpriced, But man some of the costumes actually looked interesting and looked reasonable in price. I can't believe i'm saying that it sounds, That that sounds wrong even as it's coming out of my mouth, right?
Well, and the other thing that I notice at both of these stores is for some reason hot pink is in, Yeah, halloween. I don't get it either but it is there are hot pink bats and hot pink skeletons, and like and it's different than the pastel goth that, Michael's is doing yeah, but yeah, if you're a spooky kid and if you're listening to this podcast congrats You're a spooky kid. Um, and you like pink. This is your fucking year.

[18:01] Done the straight big lot some decent decor. We actually picked up a few things. Yeah, we did, Because the price is there. I mean it's big loss the prices. This is where you go, Which we have to do soon because ours does have their stuff out now, okay Yeah, but there was nothing right home about realistically. I didn't see anything that stood out, I did note that, They had one of the things we noted was they had a two-pack of the hanging zombies, For $35 was it 25 25 meanwhile at part at my Michael's it was $50 for one, Yeah, and it was the exact same thing now granted. It was $50 before the 40% off So it would have been $30 for one. Yeah, You do the math? Do the math?
All right, that's topic one. I think we got through that pretty quickly, which was kind of the goal with that one, Topic two. Following up on last week's episode. Yes. We have some interesting McCamey Manor updates.

[19:07] Reckless Ben has posted a new episode a new video to his YouTube channel Which is kind of counter to what the video actually says right because it's a podcast episode and.

[19:21] They talk about how they can't talk about you know They can't upload on YouTube right because he has two strikes against his account, And he can't upload until October 15th, which becomes pertinent in a minute But I definitely recommend go watching this video.

[19:37] Because he's worried about losing the entirety of his YouTube account and the reason is because, McCamey manor supporters are spamming complaints of various community service guy violation community, Community what's the term community? Um shit standards?
That's the s word I'm after community standards violation, which he does not violate any community standards. Fuck off guys, You just don't like what he's saying. Yeah, that's look that is legitimately attempting to censor him. I mean granted censorship has to come from the government but the point of the matter is you're trying to stifle his speech just because you don't like what he's saying. Not because he's a danger or doing anything wrong. Right. But anyways the major point of discussion and the major updates both in that video and some stuff he's posted on his patreon which once again please check out last week's episode we have a link to his patreon page I'm gonna put that link in these notes too when the time comes But please do check out his patreon support him there and check out the videos, He has an excellent video in the patreon, which we're not going to talk to too much about we're gonna sort of go over the publicly available details right with the woman that got Russ McCamey shut down in California, it is a.

[20:51] Baller interview and some pretty interesting revelations come from it. Nothing like super new, But very interesting and it's definitely worth the watch and I've really I gotta say I've really come to enjoy Reckless Ben's interview style. Yeah.
Yeah, he's very much the casual. Uh, well, but wait a minute. Why don't I know you just yeah He just kind of lets the other person tell the story and stays in the back, which is a good interview, Yeah, well, and I just want to shut up Well, I don't know when did it?
Obviously Sorry, I had to do the show. I know No, I love whenever he's, talking to the people. Um who are supporters of mm and he's, Talking to them, and he's setting them up. Yeah, and like everybody else in the car cuz he has them on speaker is, Laughing because it's a more trying not doing the trying not like holding their mouth shut, Hilarious you want to put video of watching people try not to laugh. Yeah, that's that's your kink. That's that's, Man, you got material for a while.

[22:00] Don't know when not talking it's a masterful conversation. Yeah, he is he is he does the Columbo thing which is he feigns being dumb but you can tell he's really quite smart. Yeah. He really really is but anyways a lot of the focus has been put on those California years of Russ McCamey and sort of the whole story that came from the both podcasts in the interview is that basically he thinks and others seem to think that he was a, a home haunter who liked being edgy did sort of an extreme home haunt but then started live streaming and then began to push that edginess harder and harder until it morphed into something completely different. The plot got lost, and then eventually he got shut down and kicked out.

[22:49] And like I said the interview explains how that happened the details are pretty fucking wild. I got to admit they really are, But eventually he got kicked out of his location. He did the van thing for a while, Yeah, but not as long as you had thought yeah I had thought and this was my understanding and I think it came from both the Haunters movie and just other stuff I had heard that that was like the thing for a while, but apparently it was just a hot minute, Mm-hmm, you know where he was doing it in a van and then forced to move to Tennessee and now it's just sad, Yeah, it's just it's it's very sad It's just sad now Ben has promised a new episode after the strikes are lifted on October 15 He says it's gonna be an hour fucking long. Yeah, basically before up the four episodes He was going to release every week mashed together into one Voltron episode on this one Voltron references today, Yeah, and you know because his videos have been taken down, and he's been getting these strikes against him, It's one that when it drops. We're probably gonna watch it as soon as possible. Yeah, and I may even I.

[23:59] May bend some copyright rules and see if I can download it Okay, when it's released just in case we're not able to catch it immediately right that way I can guarantee we can view it, because I know that this this shit's going on and it pisses me off that it's going on I'm hoping that since he was able to post one or both of the previous strikes was lifted and maybe well YouTube's waking the fuck up here that's what I'm hoping but I'm not gonna take any chances I have to see this video Yeah, well, and I'm surprised that they aren't.
Um shutting down mm's YouTube because that has much more violence and stuff in it. Yeah, I don't know what community guidelines complains I think they're saying it's that was one of the things I think it's also though They're claiming that it's harassment or something like that, which is hilarious that they are harassing by complaining about harassment, Yeah, it's just its own bucket of irony. But anyways, so.

[24:56] Please note that if you were one of the people and we were to actually and we mentioned it last episode He's not ignoring the past.

[25:04] He's focused on the present because that makes sense That's what he could experience and that's what he could experience but he is under he is getting information on the past, Please subscribe to his patreon. It's five bucks a month do it just for one month of nothing else So you see the videos and we've said it enough that we should say we are not sponsored by Reckless Ben or anybody else involved. We have not even spoken to Reckless Ben. No. We have not even reached out to Reckless Ben. He does not know we exist or he may know we exist now. I don't know. Reckless Ben, if you're listening. Reach out to us. Allweekend.com, Allweekend on Twitter, Allweekend on Facebook.
Anywhere. Hit us up. We want to hear from you. We want to hear from you. Hell, we want you on the podcast, man. I'll put out the open call here. No. We want to do a live And November. We want to wait or at least after that video drops. Yeah, We don't want to we want to be able to talk about everything Yeah, and and definitely November because then our haunter friends can join in line. Yeah, exactly I we want you on the podcast in November, So, please we're gonna I'm gonna try that I had planned to try to reach out if it was working on it I have to have not done so yet. So anyways, but yeah, there is a related announcement here Last on a Friday, I got an email and the embargo has been lifted.
We can talk about it now, but basically the Haunted Attraction Association released a press release condemning McKamey Manor.

[26:29] I think they've done this before, but I couldn't find it. I really thought if they hadn't done it, then someone else has, but basically the press This release is entitled Industry Experts Say McCamey Manor Is NOT Capital Not, in a haunted house. Subtitle is.
Haunted Attraction Industry rejects highly publicized event.
It doesn't really add much. It's just further confirmation that haunters do not consider this a haunted attraction.
Yeah, and we'll be talking more about this on the news episode coming up.
Yeah, this will be in the news episode. And also, I just want to take a moment here to say fuck you to HauntCon for giving Russ McCamey a pass.
I mean, HauntCon was not supposed to be that open to the public, okay? I'm sorry.
Oh, you know, you know, so so just giving him validity.
All right. So moving on to our third topic this week, our backstory. Yay, something fun.
Yeah, this is fun. I've been looking forward to chatting about this.
One of the things I've done digitally, I've not posted it on Bernie Baxter yet.
I think it is in a position where it can be.
Yeah. Yeah, we finished the backstory for Bernie Baxter this year, and I'm actually very happy and proud with it. And since it's not very long, it's literally just 600 words, I'm just going to read it.

[27:57] Okay. It's story time with Jonathan. Story time with Jonathan.
I think, like I said, it should go pretty goddamn quick, honestly.
It should only take a couple of minutes. So if you don't want to hear the backstory, fast forward a few minutes.

[28:08] But anyways, by the mid-1920s, U.S. 90 was nearing completion and was rapidly becoming the most important corridor for travel between the east and west coasts of the country.
That combined with the car boom of the Roaring Twenties meant that more vehicles than ever were passing down the road.
But where others saw noise and congestion, Marnie Wallace saw an opportunity.
By the way, the repo counter goes up by one here.
A widow whose husband had died under mysterious circumstances, Marnie took the insurance payout she got and invested it in a new building just off the highway.
There she opened Marnie's Marvels, one of Louisiana's first roadside attractions.
The attraction was a minor hit from the outset. She sold tickets to visit her rogues' gallery of cryptids and monsters.

[28:55] She had a small museum filled with weird and bizarre items that she had collected over the years. And, of course, the exit was through a small but crowded gift shop.
To the brim with knick knacks and other collectibles for people to take home for a price.
However it was in that gift shop that she hit upon her biggest money maker. A random sales person had brought her a crate of Mumia, and I actually looked up the fucking pronunciation of that for this, Mumia, a fine powder that was made from ground mummies. Mumia supposedly held magical properties and was used to treat almost any disease you can imagine, with people ingesting or even inhaling the powder to cure themselves of whatever ailed them.
Even for the 1920s, people were shocked and horrified by this practice.

[29:40] However, where there was shock and horror, there was curiosity. And because of that, Marnie couldn't keep the product in stock.
However, even before Marnie had sold her first jar of Mumia, the product was already on the, wane. Tighter enforcement both at Egypt and the United States made it more difficult to get a hold, of. By the mid-1930s, even her black market suppliers had dried up. She could no longer keep her best seller in stock, and the attraction itself was struggling in the midst of the Great Depression. It was then Marnie made a fateful decision. As a lone customer drunkenly staggered through her museum, she slid up behind him, grabbed him, and killed him. Then, using her knowledge of the mummification process, she did her best to replicate it in the humid Louisiana climate. The outcome was not perfect. She had neither the thousands of years of time nor the dry desert air to help her. But, with a combination of practices, she was able to make a product that looked enough like Mumia to fool just about anyone. She was shocked, however, when no one came looking for the Traveler. She was even more surprised when her imitation Mamiya sold even better than the real thing. From then, it was off to the races. As business picked back up, she had both a steady supply of customers and product walking through the door. Thanks.

[30:56] To the struggles of the 1930s and the horrors of World War II in the early 40s, she was able to operate with virtually no one even noticing that her jars were filled with missing people. The Mamia ended up being her undoing. As New Orleans began to build up around her, she drew attention for openly selling what was now a strict contraband product. She was arrested, her supply compensated, but the murders were not discovered. At least not immediately. By the time Marnie was released from prison, I-10 had opened up and her little shack along US-90 was forgotten.
Rumor was she had just packed up her collection and reopened elsewhere. Either, Either way, Marnie's marbles would never open again.
It wasn't until yet another decade, when the developer bought the product and started to demolish her building, that the horrors within were discovered.
By then, Marnie was long gone, presumed dead, but otherwise missing.
But here at Bernie Baxter, we believe in second chances. So we're giving Marnie three more nights in her old building.
You can see her as she was, but be warned, she's on the lookout for a new product to to selling, you may be just what she needs.

[32:05] Now I'm actually very happy with the way this one came out. The reason is if you go back through that story, All of the dates historically line up everything other than the existence of Marnie Wallace in that is true, The existence of Barney Wallace and of course the actual Marnie's marvels place. Yeah, Mumia, Actually existed. Yeah, it was a very fucked up thing people did in the 1910s and 1920s, Yeah, and I'm wondering if we should like either link to the wiki or or like put a description of what Mumia is into the story. I'm telling you yeah maybe we should do something there. Just in case you know people don't have don't you know think oh this was a real thing yeah this you know yeah obviously it's a made-up word it's it's mummy dust. Now some of the dates needed a little finagling because US 90 wasn't actually finished until 1926 and mumia practice had already died out by then. But hey, bear in mind King Tut's tomb was opened in 1924. We were still at the peak of the Egypt craze in the United States. Yeah, which made a resurgence in our childhood. Yeah, it did. Partly because of the King Tut tour that came through during our childhood. I actually went to it in Charlotte.

[33:24] But anyways, all the dates line up. I-10 was completed in 19... or began work in 1956, and the area near here was done around that time. 56?

[33:36] Yeah, in the 50s and 60s it was done. So everything lines up very neatly.
The actual history does work out. Now, there was no Marnie Wallace.
There was no Marnie's Marvels.
None of that existed.

[33:48] Of course, going on the whole roadside attraction that kills people thing, that is a tale that goes as far back as travel. Yeah. I mean, that has been literally a thing since before medieval times.
Yeah. So, that's an easy thing to play on. Yeah, I mean, my grandparents live in a house that is known as the place where travelers would go on their travels through rural Louisiana and stop overnight and never leave. Yeah, I remember they talked about how they were supposedly killed and put in the basement or something, and that house does not have a basement. Or buried in the yard or something. Yeah, they do have plenty of yard for burying people, I'll give them that, that is feasible. And it was more woodsy back then. Yeah, so it's, but yeah, no, nobody, I mean, people did die in that house, but they died in actual causes, they weren't murdered.
Yeah, as far as we know. bars we know.
And they had that property forever that has been within the family for for an eternity So but no everything in this is true other than the actual story of Marnie Wallace and Marnie's marvels, Yeah, all the history is actually fairly accurate with some finagling of dates. I admit, but it's accurate So yeah, if you want to you want to really know how fucked up people were a century ago.

[35:08] Literally just a hundred years ago. Don't forget that Don't lose sight of that there are people who were alive when this was going on.
Yeah, no kidding.
Yeah, look up Lumia. M-U-M-I-A. Have fun. Enjoy that.
Enjoy that little dose of fresh hell for you.
All right. Now we get to topic four. We have been planning our haunt visits, and so we're just gonna spend the last 15, 20-ish minutes talking about the haunts we're planning on going to and what we're excited about or looking forward to.
First things first, though, our haunt visits will be limited.
Yeah. A, as we mentioned, we feel like we're behind on our haunt work, whether we are or not, is not unimportant. Right. None of these dates are going to be subject to change.
Yeah, in fact, I didn't even put dates in because we don't know what the dates are going to be like. Well, one, the visits may change, too, based on our availability.
Two of them are pretty locked in, and we'll get to that in a minute.
Yeah.
But... Part of the reason is... some big personal news that I'm not going to talk about yet, but it may change, It may change October for me.

[36:18] And we can't talk about it yet. Everything seems to be pretty dialed in.
Yeah. But we can't really talk about it until next week. It'll become clear when we talk about it.
Just bear in mind, 4.08, next episode, tune in. We've got more shit to talk about on that front.
Yeah. And see, this is a great way to make sure they come back too. Yeah, podcasting.

[36:40] You're explaining marketing. We're professional podcasters who never earned a dime.
Yeah, I think we have to earn a dime in order to say we're anti-professional.

[36:50] Podcasters, that's perfect. That sounds like us But yeah, and also we want to save some money and some time and part of it is because the aforementioned big news, That said we have planned some visits and we have a list of haunts We are going to try and get including two haunts coming up this weekend and I can say safely We're going to them because we booked the fucking time slots on Saturday. Yeah, so next week we'll also be talking about these first two haunts and the first one is, Mortuary, which is kind of always our first haunt it is because it's the one that opens up earliest usually, Yep, they open up earliest.

[37:31] And I gotta say I'm actually really excited to see what's new with the mortuary because it's a knockdown haunt, So we know they change probably about 90% of what they do.
Yeah. Changes from year to year.
But that expectation is always tempered by the fact that we know it's going to be shorter.
Yeah, they don't have any room to expand because of the historical building they're in.
And the fact that the property they're on is, that's it.
Yeah, it usually takes about 10 minutes. Yeah, I don't think we've ever had a walkthrough go longer, than 15. It's always been 10 to 12 minutes. Yeah, when I timed it. And right now tickets are 30 bucks a pop. That's a big yikes. Yeah, there have been some years that we have skipped it.

[38:20] Just because it didn't work out. Yeah, financially. And I'll say this, I was going through their past attractions their past years. They actually have a pretty good list of their past themes on their website right now and I'm actually kind of excited about this year's theme. The theme is Blood Wedding and it's set in 1872. Now the unique selling point of the mortuary has always been the building itself. It's a gorgeous old building. It is. Literally like other than like the flow of people. You could theoretically open a haunted house and do nothing to it other than you'd have to find like I said carve a path for people to travel. It is an old historic building and it looks every bit it's it every bit it it's great. And the thing is they change themes every year, and the years in which they've had a theme that a gives them the strong potential to work with and created with but also B works with you know the building itself they've been pretty good.

[39:29] The years where the theme has not landed with us has been because they went against.
Because it made no sense to be in that space.
Yeah like the one year early on and I think it was I'd have to look it up I've actually got it up somewhere but they did a circus thing Cirque du Faire that just sucked.
Yeah. And I'm and I say that knowing full and damn well that people we know who work in the mortuary are sitting there going, Yep. Yeah, well that one sucked. Yeah, and then in 2018 they did the purge which didn't really land with me, but I kind of give that one a pass for two reasons.
One is the Purge was big in New Orleans at the time, because that was the year of the TV series that was filmed in the city, including some of it not far from our house. Right, the actors would take over our bar. Yeah, and the second thing, the second reason, is that was also the first year they did Scout Island. Yeah. So I can kind of forgive them for having their creativity very divided. Right, that makes sense. So yeah, but this year they're doing Blood Wedding. Yeah, I like this one. Yeah, it makes sense. It seems to be set around 1872, I think there's a lot they can do with it. There's a lot of visuals that pop in my head Yeah, I wonder if they actually scheduled a wedding during October and that's why they're doing a wedding theme because if so, genius Yeah, I know that they rent out the building for other. Yeah, that's a year-round.

[40:53] Attraction space event and traction space, but it's not a year-round haunted house. Yeah.

[40:59] So yeah, I'm actually excited about it. I'm actually looking forward to this, curious what they do with it. I've got a lot of things floating in my mind that, that you can do with that theme.
I'm curious to see how they take it.

[41:10] Also, that same night we will be hitting up New Orleans Nightmare.
Also, I mean, every time you mention it, you're legally obligated to mention it was previously the House of Shock. They have three themes. The Deadlands, Repossessed, and Midnight Mortuary Blood Ritual. Now, that last one does not sit well with me, not because it's offensive or anything, But because you realize the actual mortuary on a house is literally like only a few miles away Is only a few miles away and their theme is blood wedding, So it's mortuary blood in both titles for the events and the thing about it for me is Historically ever since they've no one's nightmare. They've had these themes. I, Look at them I remember them then I go to the house and I have no fucking idea, how the weddings, how the themes impact the actual haunt.
Right.
It's not that it's a bad haunt, I just don't get the role these themes played in it.
Here's the thing, I did look it up, No One's Nightmare is owned by 13th Floor, that's Nashville Nightmare, the 13th Floor haunts, all that.
Some of their sister haunts have the same theme. I found at least two that also had the Midnight Mortuary Blood Ritual, but it seems like they have like six or seven different themes. Yeah. And like each haunt has two or three of them.

[42:36] I don't know who picked doing Midnight Mortuary Blood Ritual in New Orleans, but that, that, that is bad. It's tacky. It's tacky. I don't understand the choice. It's a marketing ploy. I don't.
But if you search for mortuary haunted house are you going to get both now?
I would I would wonder that but the way the New Orleans Nightmare site is set up I doubt, anyone's going to get that because I don't think it's an SEO thing.
Yeah and I don't think... Because it's very buried. Like I had to hunt to find this. Yeah.

[43:12] Okay, then yeah, I have no I think that's the only reason I just think it seems to me like it was done without really thinking, It's like oh, yeah, that one looks That's cool. And it kind of goes with stuff. We have we'll make it work, They do have a new attraction or talent and I am very excited about this and I have a list of questions, That is longer than a CVS receipt, But the attraction is the shot-in-the-dark dark secret bar that supposedly is inside the attraction. Now we've heard about other haunts doing this. I have so many questions. How do you card people?
How do you deal with throughput? How does this hurt your haunts throughput or help it?
I don't know. What's the deal? How does this work? I bet you get a wristband before you go in. We'll report on whether or not that happens. Yeah, we're going to actually...
This is gonna be a big focus next week, I'm sure, is this exact thing. We're gonna find the fucker. We're gonna do everything in our power to find it.
Supposedly, it's the secret bar, but I doubt it's super secret. I don't think it's gonna be that difficult. Well next week is also a news week, Okay, it is so So it might be four oh nine. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You keep saying next week, but I don't think you're looking at the numbers You're right. I'm not you're 100% right. I'm not yeah, Jesus fucking Christ. All right, so four nine We'll talk about what happened and maybe we'll do a brief thing in the before the news, The news episodes tend to be a little bit short.

[44:33] So it's gonna be fun. I have lots of questions going in.
We'll hopefully have answers by this time next week. They're also promoting a non-secret bar, Bar 13. They've had a bar there, but it's realistically just like a merch booth type thing where you walk up and you get a drink and you walk around outdoors. They are now showing it like it's an indoor enclosed bar.

[44:57] Interesting. So I'm interested in that too and I'm glad that'll be our second attraction. Yeah. Because all we have to do is figure out how we're getting home.
And if we do get a little carried away, there's Uber and Lyft and so forth.
Yeah, I'm not leaving my car over there. That's true. We'll find a way to get home safely, basically.
Yeah. Next haunt we'll be going to, and this will not be that night, this is another night, because basically this is where things get up in the air. We don't have exact dates. And what I've done is I put the haunts roughly in order that I'm I'm prioritizing them. Mm-hmm.
Like though these first few are all about the same realistically, but 13th gate, Definitely going to it. It's always a great haunt. We haven't missed a year since we've been in the area, Eager to see what's new. We have not heard anything.

[45:49] One way or the other about what's new and I like it that way. Yeah, that's why I don't go and look on the sites I like you buy the tickets because I don't want to know I want to Okay, it doesn't fucking matter. They don't mention anything new, Yeah, so you can feel free to roam the 13th gates website and social media to your heart's content, sweetie Yeah, well, I did see the one, you know photo with all the clowns and I'm like really yeah, Including seven actual penny wises. Yeah, but anyways, so yeah, I Don't really know what's new there. There's I'd have nothing to comment about what I'm excited about because they're advertising a new selfie museum.
I have no idea what the fuck that even is. We'll report on that too after.
It's a photo op booth. Okay, but then why is it a museum?
I guess do they have multiple photo ops in one place? Probably.
I mean, yeah, that's my best guess as to what it is, but I've never heard the term selfie museum in my life.
And so I'm at least. I'm thinking it's gonna be like the photo op areas Fright Trail in Lafayette. Yeah, where you go into different little shacks. That's be kind of cool. Yeah that, But so yeah, 13th gate very excited to go always eager to see what's new We haven't heard shit about it. And that's the way we like it. So, yeah, please anybody at 13th gate. Don't change that.

[47:13] Rise haunted house Obviously eager to go there and see their three attractions, but as with 13th gate, I have no idea what they're promoting. What's new?
No idea at all. No Though, as I look forward to it, I am most excited, as I usually am, for the asylum.
Yeah, um, it was a little disconcerting last year when we went, honestly.
Okay. Because COVID. Oh, yeah.
It was the first, you know, touch haunt after COVID.
And I was like... Even though it's a super light touch haunt, realistically.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, but it's like, this breath is really close to me.
Yeah, um, I'm eager to see how... Because the asylum is...
They have the big house, as they call it, the asylum and the hayride.
Yeah of the three the asylum is the biggest source of evolution, They're always evolving. That's where they put their peak actors where they put the actors that they think are best for that, And basically that is where you see the quickest and steadiest evolution Even if they don't change much in the haunt physically the actors can change the routines and the scenes a lot That's an actor driven haunt. It's very much actor driven and it's, Always got great actors in it. So I'm always excited about it. Yeah.

[48:36] Yeah, I have no idea what's new I have no idea what I'm looking forward to I do know that there is some big plans, For rise. I haven't asked how those planes are coming along At least there were like this time last year. We were talking about them, So I'm thinking this might wind up being something of a bridge year Where they're kind of working on all these long-term projects and not a lot's different, But you know what the asylum in particular that doesn't really matter, No, because the actors can can just change so much By themselves, it's great. So I'm really hoping that that's what happens, Then after that, we're be trying to get down to decomposed haunted house and Houma, Yeah, and this is run by our friend John the second year in operation.

[49:25] You know the first year the actors were incredible. Yeah, considering that according to John like Most of them had never even been in a haunted house before.
Yeah.
He did a great job training them and making sure that they were on their lines and on target and a lot of that was His dedication he would slip in with groups multiple times over the course of the night and go with people And you know what good on him Made him made it so he could stand and correct and help and guide people, It was pretty brilliant stuff. Um, I I can't because here's the thing first year. No haunt is 100, No, i've never been to a haunt on year one that I would say was 100 The most I would say is that they were at like 75% of what they could be and you know what when I say a Haunt that's a 75% what it could be. I think I might be talking about decomposed Yeah because they were Between the actors and the haunt design because John one of the reasons we're such good friends with him, It's because we agree on the principles of how you design a room in a haunt. Yeah, we're all on the same page in that Yeah, and give actors multiple pop-outs multiple scare options build Build opportunities into The Haunt.
Don't just build a room, make it scary, and tell the actor, figure it out.
That's not what he does, that's not what we do.

[50:41] And honestly, it works. He had some great actors, did amazing stuff.
But yeah, once again, I'm curious to see now that he's had another year, what's different, what's new, if it's bigger, what the actors are doing. I'm excited about this one.
This has the potential to be off to the races.
That was first year, then yeah, I'm excited about year two. Yeah. All right, next item up for bid for us, and this is out toward Lafayette and New Iberia, is a new haunt to us. Frightmare on Main Street. No. We had never heard of this one before. No. And in fact, it's kind of funny how we heard about it, because I found a list of haunted attractions in Louisiana that did not list the 13th gate, did not list mortuary, did not list New Orleans Nightmare, did not list.

[51:34] Most anything else, but managed to get this one. Yeah, which is, you know, pretty surprising, and apparently it's in the old hot sauce house. They're quoting that out. Which I'm interested because, you know, I grew up with a dad who loves hot sauce. He's a hot head, so, So, it sounds like it's going to be close to a roadside attraction haunt, which, unfortunately, is also what we're doing, but...
But this appears to be, from the descriptions online, it's an indoor outdoor haunt.
They encourage you to wear good footwear and all that, and we always do when we go to haunts.
I'm not worried about that at all.
As limited dates, I think they're only open eight nights, and I honestly don't really know full on if this is a home haunt or a pro haunt. had their site is done by Sinister Visions, which I can tell you without even scrolling down to the footer yeah but.

[52:28] I mean, it's a lovely haunt. The design's great, but yeah, you know a sinister vision site when you see it.
Yeah. So yeah, I'm very curious about this one, and the more I read about it, the more excited I am to go.
And while we're up that way, we may be heading to... Fright Trail. Which is in Lafayette, which is basically like 30 minutes away from this haunt. They're very close together. Yeah, we had a good time last time we went. It's a very long trail haunt through the woods. Yeah, we've not been to Fright Trail every year.
No, we went there one year and then we went the year we did the Houston trip. Yeah, and now this will be our return after that and.

[53:03] When we first went to for actual had a great time But the issue they had that first year for us was that their trail was so wide and straight, That the people we were trying to stay in our group with yeah, we're just running, Yeah, which is dangerous because it's still woods, right and you know, they solved that but we unfortunately were there at the same time as they were, sending the photo guy through with to get their their promo shots and things yeah of people running scared and so the entire time we were either right next to you or just passed by this bright light with the the equipment yeah so I'm hoping this year that doesn't happen. Yeah. What are the odds really? I don't know. Then again, let's not test us. We found some ways to generate some really bad luck. You should Let's see how we play in Deep Rock Galactic.

[54:04] But yeah, I'm really excited. I'm curious how they further improve the trail.
Because they made a lot of improvements to the spaces between the buildings.
I'm really hoping they do more with that because some of the stuff they put in those spaces was really interesting and that seemed like a natural place to do more.
Yeah.
So I'm very curious. And finally, if we can make it, this one is honestly the least likely, but I would like to go if we can, and that is to check out Darkwoods in Natchitoches, Louisiana.

[54:31] We've been there twice, but have we been? Once.
We've only been there once. We've only been there once for the haunt and then once for non-haunt related things.
Yeah, you went once for non-haunt related things. Yeah. I didn't, I was not all that trope. Yeah.
But yeah, the haunt, I remember liking both the trail and the clown house they had that year.
Yeah. They needed to do some work on their front of house stuff. Yeah. They did not, but that was their first year haunting if I remember correctly. Well, it wasn't their first year, but it was...
They were still fairly new. Yeah, they were still figuring stuff out. They were figuring out a lot of the more pragmatic stuff Like how to keep people entertained in line how to give actors break without shutting down everything Yeah And I'm hoping that there are no people, High up in cages that need to get out or that one more girl that was in the cage on the ground with no Obvious whiteout. Yeah, Yeah, I'm hoping that they took on board some of the safety ideas we mentioned to them previously and we talked to them directly about it, in addition to mentioning it on both reviews and the podcast.
Honestly, they've established to me they can build a good haunt.
It's a matter of having nailed down those fundamentals. And I think enough time has passed, I definitely think it's possible.

[55:47] Well that's everything right now. That's all we're going...
I don't think we're doing a trip further afield this year because of, and we'll talk about that next week. Insert blank here. Blank news here. But yeah, I'm excited. I'm looking forward to a lot of these haunts. I've been trying to pick up tickets since a lot of these tickets are on sale. Yeah. But on that note, everyone, thank you very much for joining us for the past hour. I know it's a weird episode full of just random shit. Hopefully you found it interesting and engaging. If you want to check out more of what we do, we're hauntweekly.com, hauntweekly on Twitter, hauntweekly on Facebook, and youtube.com slash hauntweekly is the YouTube channel. Check us out there and wherever you get your podcasts from. We've got 406 more episodes.
You've got N-1 episodes for you, so definitely you can find one that fits your fancy. But until, next time, I'm Jonathan. I'm Crystal. And we will see you all next week, since as someone just pointed out to me, is the number divisible by four. That means it is time to do... The News.
We will see you all then, take care.