Anthology of Horror, Volume 7

and I didn't know this before before. Before we started recording. Today, our producer Seth was telling us that apparently quite a few Simpson's Treehouse of Horror episodes have had to air after Halloween because they've been preempted by baseball or something. Yeah, I mean, and of course, you know, we can always drive on the fact that not all scary movies come out during the month of October, and many come out throughout the rest of the year, and ultimately, on this show,

it's you know, it's kind of Halloween year round. Um. Though, I guess the tragedy is that some times we put off content we're like, oh, this will be perfect for Halloween, let's save this for October, and then we make it through October and we're like, ah, didn't actually fit that one in this year? Maybe this will happen next October. But hey, we're keeping another tradition alive right now because this is going to be the Is this the seventh

anthology episode we've done for October? I think it is. I think this is number seven. Um, that doesn't mean we've been doing it seven years, because some years we've

put out more than one volume. But basically the idea here is these kind of spinoff of some old creepy post episodes that we did back in the day, where we look to the world of horror anthology films and especially TV shows, we pick something out of the basket and we we sort of use it as an excuse to talk about something something you know, science, e or um, you know, cultural, basically, some sort of sort of topic that that in many cases might not make for a

full episode of stuff to blew your mind on a zone, but the horror anthology episode gives us an excuse to talk about it, and vice versa, the topic gives us an excuse to talk about that particular episode. This is especially valuable back in the days before Weird House Cinema, when we did not have a weekly outlet for for any obsessions with macab vielings. So I guess with Weird House, we're always talking about movies and uh and and I know specifically what you've got in your heart with these

anthology episodes is like the nineties Outer Limits revival. Yes, yeah, I look forward to talking about about one of those. I've really been enjoying watching those throughout the pandemic. Um, My wife and I have been watching these pretty much every week remotely with a couple of friends of ours. Actually, uh. They host a podcast by the name of Talking Tofu, So if you want a like a vegan themed funny podcast, I recommend that. I don't know if they're gonna talk

about out or Limits at all in there. Maybe they're leaving that all for me. But at any rate, I've really enjoyed um exploring and re exploring the nineties Outer Limits episodes because there's there's some real garbage in there, um, but there are some great episodes. And and also just about anybody who was doing TV during the nineties seems to show up at one point or another, as well

as a wide variety of Canadian actors. So I to think long and hard about which episode to pick here and ended up going with one from the second season. This is the sixteenth episode of season two came out in and it's titled The d Programmers. Now Rob, I ended up having to jump through a lot of digital hoops to watch this one, but I'm so glad I did. This is a phenomenal pick. Yeah, these uh, these episodes

were I think there is of this recording. They're in kind of a streaming limbo where you can fortunately still purchase them digitally, which is not the case for some anthology shows like I think Tales from the Crypt is still exceedingly hard to get ahold digitally right now because of some rights issues, um outer limits. Yeah, if you're gonna, if you're gonna just straight up stream them without purchasing them, sometimes you have to. You have to find uh unique

ways of viewing them. But if you look around, you can find them. And I believe you can digitally purchase these episodes still. Uh So The Deep Programmers is out there for anyone who who wishes to view it. All right, give me the scoop on The Deep Programmers, all right, So I'm just I'm not gonna give it the full weird House treatment obviously, but just to go through the people involved, Um, it was directed by Joseph L. Scanlon, who lived through longtime TV genre director who worked on

such shows as as Outer Limits. He did seven episodes of that, He did four episodes of Star Trek the Next Generation, he did an episode of Quantum Leap, and seven episodes of Land of the Lost, among many other things. The writer on this was James Crocker, TV writer who wrote multiple episodes of The Outer Limits as well as the early two thousand's Twilight Zone revival which I'm not sure I remember that one. He also did uh some Star Trek Deep Space nine as well as the nineteen

eighties Twilight Zone Revival and more. But speaking of Trek, the most notable casting in this episode is Brent Spiner. Um. Yes, Data himself plays this uh this reprogrammer that that's introduced as being kind of like this this um part of the like the human Resistance movement. He's there to deprogram people who have been brainwashed by the the enemy alien overlords. And he's a real pleasure in this because you know, everybody loves Data. He was great on on Star Trek

Next Generation and then the you know, the related movies. Um. Some people may know him from Independence Day uh seven episodes of Night Chord, uh. He pops up in Shocker and The Aviator, few episodes of Blunt Talk, various other things, A lot of work, but this is one of the few play if not the only place I can remember seeing mean Brent Spiner like, he's he's he's he's rough and tumble. He's a bad cop in this, Yeah he is. Uh. I actually having never seen tons of Star Trek The

Next Generation, I remember I a few years back. I was like, Okay, everybody my age has watched a bunch of TNNG, I should like watch, you know, go through it. And I started in the first season, and oh it was. It was rough going. I am to understand it gets better as it goes on, but but I didn't make it all that far though. Of course, you know, he

is there in the first season as data. So when I think of Brent Spiner, I think of Dr oakein an Independence Day, who you know is a who is really one of the biggest rays of sunshine in that movie. He plays a uh, I don't even know how. He plays a sort of emotionally stunted, sort of childlike scientist who has apparently been in a bunker for forty years or something. Yeah, yeah, he's um a goofy mad scientists kind of a character. But wait, who is he in Shocker?

I've seen Shocker a number of times and I don't remember him at all. It's listed on his filmography. I've never seen Shocker. I've only heard heard you gush about it. You heard me gush? Huh, yeah, I thought you liked it, right, you have nice things to say about it. I mean, Shocker is very bad, but it's a it's an entertaining bad. It's it's ridiculous. All right. Well, we'll speaking of actors in this. Uh, just a couple of others of note here. Um.

Eric Anderson plays Evan Robert Cooper. Uh. This is a TV and film actor who played Rob in Friday the Thirteenth. The final chapter is that one of the Good Ones? Is that one of the are there good ones? That's the that's the last one in which Jason is a human before he's an undead revenant. So it goes one through four he's a human, and then in the fifth one it's a copycat killer, and then in the sixth one that's when he's a revenant. This is the last one before he gets his head cut in half by

Corey Feldman. Okay, but Rob, the character in this is a sort of He's a sort of dashing hero who show is up. You know, you think he's going to save the day, but I think ultimately Jason just kills him in a basement. Alright. Well, the basic pitch the plot for this episode of the Outer Outer Limits, uh,

and in the one of the should drive on. One of the great things about these nineties episodes of The Outer Limits is that generally they're they're very earnest, they really want to say something important about the human condition, and that serious tone is often what makes them so delightful, because sometimes there are wonderful sci fi ideas explored in them, sometimes not so much. Sometimes the attempt is there, but

maybe not the delivery. But it also makes the things that don't work that make you know, some of the maybe some of the performances they're not that crisp uh, it makes them all the more hilarious because they're definitely not aiming for comedy. There maybe one or two I think that that do kind of aim for something more whimsical and fun, and I think some of those are the ones that really don't hold up. But for the most part, it's it's the seriousness that makes it work.

Like if it was more self conscious, that would actually kind of cheapen it and make it not as fun. Yeah. So in this one, it takes place on a future Earth. Earth we find out is ruled by alien overlords called the Torqure. Uh. They're kind of these repellent, reptilian humanoid titans who seem to live solitary lives, like they is if they evolve from some sort of solitary predatory species instead of something that had some sort of communal system. Yeah,

they're like eight foot tall alligator men. So they've got these reptilian outsides, and they they're very haughty, and they just like to sort of lord around their their bathtub and yell at their their human servants and say, oh, why aren't you bringing me my oil faster? Yeah, they're kind of like giant reptile Mr. Burns it is. You know, they're they're that level of awful um. And I guess there's probably more than a dash of um Battlefield Earth

to this as well. Yes, because of course that involved uh, super tall alien overlords who you know, have a like a brutal rule imposed over Earth. I made that exact note. I mean this to be clear. This episode is much better than Battlefield Earth. But I got some of those notes when I was just reminded of John Travolta in the movie yelling, I told you to get some man animals in here to fix this. Yeah, they look great in this. By the way that the Torqure when we

first encounter them, we don't see their faces. We just see their arms. So there's kind of a sense of the one Sler in the Lorax uh to it. And then later we get to see them more or less in full and uh like Like most of these episodes of the Outer Limits, whenever there is a creature effect, it's practical and very well executed. So anyway, yes, we have torquor overlords ruling over everything. Helping them are these

mentally reconditioned human slaves that are called Joe them. So the idea, at least to the getting of the episode, is that all of the humans left on Earth after it's been conquered by these aliens are brainwashed into being subservient to their their new alien masters. Right, and so we meet up with our our Joe Lem characters. Our main jo Lem character Evan here, and he's working for a tor Core overlord named col Tak. And there's this

scene where they're preparing him his slime bath. They're preparing him his saragon oil. The other Joe Lem drops the saragon oil and breaks it and so uh this so coal Tag is brutally murders him. There's a lot of coal Tak complaining that the oil is not arriving fast enough. So he's in his slime bath. Bring it to me the oil. I need the oil. You Jolum are always so slow. Yeah, there's a there's a very strong Kangan

Kodos vibe to their their voices in this. Yes, the Kangan Kodos thing was also very strong, And I wonder what is the timing on that Kangan Kotos? So they came out before ninety right, yeah they did? Yeah, yeah, so they must predate this though then again, I mean this is I think the same year as Citizen Kang,

which is maybe the closest analogue. Yeah. My my bed is they're both essentially inspired by some of the same sci fi precursors, except, of course, the Simpsons took it in a intentionally comedic direction, and the Outer Limits took it in a serious direction, not realizing how comedic it comes off. But it's really amusing in this episode. Yeah, it is uncanny how much kol Tax sounds like Kang now. Um. The next big phase in this is that we find

out well Evan Uh, first of all, is spared. He's not going to die uh and his luck would have it, He's about to go off to rejuvenation training because a good Joe Loman is worth keeping around for a very long time via life extending a lien technology. So he boards a bus to the Bliss Renewal Center. Um. Which reminded when I saw this one for this time, it just instantly made me think of Simpsons and ren education. Yes, um, sit back and let the hooks do the work exactly um.

But on the way he is kidnapped by the Human Resistance Movement and they attempt to deprogram him to remove all of this uh, this this alien brainwashing that has turned him into a servant and make him part of the resistance movement to take back Earth. And this is where we meet Brent Spiner's character, Resistance d programmer Professor Trent Davis, who is all about stopping a mud hole in a Joe lom if it busts up that that

old Joe loam conditioning. Yeah, and I guess this is playing up on the idea of an aggressive practice of d programming UM trying to to say, Okay, this guy Evan here, the main character has been has been conditioned, or you might say brainwashed by by this alien programming that to to sort like make him fear having a

will of his own. And you and Brent Spiner's ideas, you've got to really like make him snap out of it with a bunch of kind of brutal and even violent tactics, yelling in his face, burning him, cutting him, that kind of thing. Now, the twist here, and so you know, standard warning if you don't want this spoiled, if you want to go out and see this for yourself, pause right now and then come back later. But the twist is that they put him through this deep programming system.

It seems to work. He's part of the resistance. Now he helps them in an attempt to assassinate UM, his former overlord. And then what do we find out at the end, We find out, oh, Brent Spiner was a Joe loom all along himself. He was. He was not part of the human resistance. He was just part of a rival torque course plot to take out one of his his his rival alien overlords. Right, So what you thought was a was a human rebellion against these a

alien invaders was in fact an intra alien political struggle. Yes, which is a nice twist. And one of the interesting things about these Outer Limits episodes is they usually have a twist. So if you watch enough of them, you end up spending half the time just trying to guess what the twist is going to be. Uh, did you guess this one, Joe? Well, I did sort of see the twist coming, but only because I knew there was

gonna be a twist. If I had not known there was going to be a twist, I might not have There may be episodes where the twist is there's no twist, but I can't think of what it would be off hand. There's some episodes where the twist occurs super early and then it's all about sort of the the the ramifications of that twist. But there's a twist in there somewhere. They're they're kind of a happy like San Junipero of the of the Outer Limits. Um, there might be Uh,

I'm trying to think and nothing's coming to mind. Um. The real twist is this is so sweet most of the time, you know, because you have the cool narration that comes on to the end where the narrator kind of drives at home for you. And usually it's something like when the humans expand into the stars, they'll deal with their greatest enemy themselves. You know, it's always something like that, you know. Yeah, this one has some kind

of pretentious phrases about free will. It was like, at what point does a humans free will cease to exist? And at that point would we still be human? Questions that are are not really exploring in this episode. It's not about those questions than the episode we're discussing here. Naturally, this all takes place within the context of an extreme

sci fi scenario. Humans are conditioned to be joe Lems, presumably from a very young age, and then this conditioning is continually enforced across a lifespan that that might prove quite long due to these rejuvenation treatments, and there certainly is a human component to the culture that forces this worldview on them. But at the helm of all of this are these alien masters. Well one thing, though, you

mentioned being conditioned since childhood. In this case, they say that the alien invasion was only about two years ago. Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah so uh so, really these guys haven't been I guess that's the long view is that is that they're going to keep him around for a while. But Evan has couldn't have been a jolem for that long. Uh But still the idea is that he's he's largely forgotten his previous life. He's forgotten what it was to be a free to human and now

all he thinks is the joelem way. So um. Again, this episode is called the d Programmers, And when the term d programming has been used before in the context of real world ideologies, were generally talking about a scenario of an alleged cult or some other group with an ideology that's deemed harmful. And I was looking into this a bit. The idea emerged pretty much during the nineteen

seven DS as a part of the counter cult movement. Now, before we do that, forces to back up another step, because, of course, the first big question would be what constitutes the cult um you'll typically encounter a list of criteria that includes stuff like separation from one's pre existing support group, devotion to a single domineering figure. I read one list that focused on charismatic leaders, transcendent belief systems, systems of control,

and systems of influence. But obviously there's a great deal of ambiguity in in some of these UM definitions. And while we can all point to specific, especially historic examples of destructive cults and say, yes, well that's a cult, you can also throw this word at various religious and political ideologies. UM. Now, certainly harmful and abusive cults. It do exist centered around harmful ideologies, harmful systems, and or

harmful individuals. Uh. So that the question isn't whether such groups exists, but to what degree other groups are lumped in with them, uh, etcetera. Now, another key to understanding this idea of d programming is the notion of brainwashing. This is a term coined by journalist and propagandist Edward Hunter, who lived nineteen o two through who wrote Brainwashing in Red China The Calculated Destruction of Men's Minds, a nineteen fifty two anti communism book based on a nineteen fifty

article that he wrote. And uh, this was apparently an outlandish idea even at the time contemporary psychologist and had it took issue with it. Later commentators would criticize it um, but it struck a nerve. It made its way into mainstream fiction even uh and uh we see that in films like The Manchurian Candidate and various works of visual or written media. And it also made its way into

political discourse. I think you can possibly see this, this type of ideas being associated with behavior as trends in psychology that maybe later psychologists would look back on and say that they may have sort of over emphasized the role of like mechanistic conditioning and how much it could

do in shaping a person's cognitive and behavioral tendencies. Yeah. Absolutely, I mean you take you take some understanding of behavioralism, throw in a few more pop psychologists, a hefty dose of red scare, and you have you have a firm

bedrock upon which to build this idea of of of brainwashing. Uh. And and even you have like, for instance, the CIA's mk Ultra program gets in on it and tries to uh to weaponize the idea of mind control, thinking that the enemy may have developed techniques that do this, And ultimately, of course, the mk ultra revolve around seeking answers and methods. Um from from print, for instance, the world of Psychedelics, thinking, well, psychedelics seem to have this effect on the way people

view the world. Maybe we could use that to break down the human mind and then build something up in its place. Yeah, And I think the question is, like, what level of mechanistic control can you ultimately have over

somebody else's behavior? Can you? Can you essentially just sort of like format the hard drive of somebody's brain and completely rewrite their their personality, their behaviors, and program them like a robot or much more likely, you know, is sort of the reality that in the kind of mundane way that we would all observe throughout our lives. Yeah, humans can have strong influences on each other, especially if there's if there's a lot of them, and they form

a kind of, uh a reinforced social network. But humans don't have lines of code in their brain, and you can't like just format the hard drive and rewrite their operating system exactly. Uh. An excellent source on this that I recommend um as a Slate article written by Lorraine Bosonal titled The True Story of Brainwashing and How It

Shaped America. UM It's great reading gets into all this in detail, but essentially they write that the brainwashing and mind control, both of these were essentially a boogeyman based on fear of communism, fear of Eastern culture, and the fear that Russia, China, and ultimately Korea had something that we didn't have. They had some tool for breaking down people's will and uh and changing their mind set. But as it turned out, the author describes, brainwashing was not real.

Torture and trauma very much were. And for instance, the POWs that were observed. Uh, there was this fear that that, oh, well, there's the popes during the Korean War, that they had undergone some sort of brainwashing, that there, you know, their their minds had been changed, when in reality they were they were just really traumatized individuals subjected to torturous conditions. Uh. So there were no brainwashed sleeper agents. There were just

traumatized humans. But she she quotes Timothy uh Melly, professor of English at Miami University at the time of the writing. At any rate, uh and UH this individual says, quote, the basic problem that brainwashing is designed to address is the question why would anyone become a communist? And I feel like that kind of summarizes a lot of this, uh right there, Yeah, And I guess you could apply that actually to any kind of ideological or life change

that you don't understand. I mean, you can ask the same question like why would somebody join what you might think of as a cult or why would somebody do X?

Or why something that doesn't at all seem appealing to you and you can't understand why somebody would do it, you may at that point have to assume that it's like it's like the computer of somebody's brain has been hacked and there there's malware in it, when in fact, a more useful model might be to uh uh think more outside the box in terms of what human incentives are.

I mean, I I personally think that a lot of times we can just have a failure of imagination in fathoming people's say, desire for certain kinds of social interactions and how much like a is something that even is a like truly harmful cult or idy I'll g could fulfill these needs for people if they're not getting them

elsewhere exactly. Yeah. And so looking back to the early nineteen seventies, here um at Heart, you just had controversial, ideologically driven groups uh that were often attractive to young people. And this was not an exclusive reality of the nineteen seventies, obviously, but this was a pronounced period of concern over it. The mid twentieth century United States provides more than enough not only Cult Panic, but also Red Panic, Satanic Panic,

and much more. We got Panics of plenty. Oh yeah, yeah, we have an endless, endless supply of them. And again not to say that some of these groups were not, you know, ultimately harmful, but many of them were not. Many of them were just different ideologies that seemed scary to certain parts of of the public. I was reading a source on this titled Exit Counseling and the Decline

of d Programming UM. This was by sociologist Stephen A. Kent, and UM in a counselor by the name of Joseph p uh sim Heart was published in two thousand two in Cultic Studies Review, And they were talking about just how this deep programming approach work. The the idea that okay, someone has been exposed to uh to ac cult. They've joined a cult, and now we want to get them out of it. What can we do? How do we how do we reverse mindwashing? Well, we have to deprogram them.

Um So, so the first of all, just the the the obvious thing here is that that we know that that that brainwashing uh and and and mind control. These are uh these are at at least over simplifications of far more complex problems. And therefore the idea of dep programming is based in that fallacy and that oversimplification. At least from the outside, it has always kind of seemed to me that the the logic behind deprogramming is essentially

counter brainwashing. That someone has brainwashed you to be in a cult, and now we have to like brainwash you back out of bit like you know, is I took you into this thing, and I'm gonna take you out the same way. Uh. So you you have to like use sort of like aggressive, uh forceful tactics to try to essentially brainwash somebody back into whatever is deemed the

legitimate culture. Is Yeah, and of course the first step and all of that is just by establishing or labeling uh the offending ideology or group as a cult as something that is in some way deviant, that is engaging in mind control, and therefore there's something to reverse. But then the d programming itself it often took the form of involuntary extractions from the allegedly deviant ideology or group and then attempts to forcibly reverse the alleged mind control

or brainwashing. And of course all of this should raise just a number of red flags for anyone, because, among other things, it assumes that the individual, often a young adult, just has no agency or choice, like they cannot be trusted to make make choices about what they believe in and what they do. Um. You know, they were pulled in one direction by charismatic force, and now we have to pull them back in another direction through intensive, uh you know, strong arm tactics like it's a boot camp

or something. And then on top of that, you run the risk of engaging in actual kidnapping and abuse in an attempt to deprogram somebody. So you quickly get into very legally and ethically murky waters, assuming you don't land on as bad or as you know, worse um situation uh compared to what you were attempting to save them. From um so charges of religious oppression and civil rights violation were also made. There were various lawsuits related to

D programming efforts. And so one of the things that that Kent and his co out there point out is that is that you saw this um this movement away from D programming um uh, this idea that that first of all D programming didn't prove all that effective, but then it gave way to techniques that were more progress of non coercive that we're more about the autonomy of the individual and an attempt to value everyone present UM and find a structure that would like work with everyone's

value systems, including the value system UM of the group that the individual is is that they're attempting to extract them from all. Right, so maybe there is a recognition of flaws within some of these so called D programming tactics.

But of course you would still have the problem that people are ending up in in in cults that at least you know their loved ones are uh could probably make a strong case or a really negative influence on their lives and are certainly hurting hurting family relationships and stuff like that. Uh So, so is there something else people go to is another option for trying to trying

to help guide their loved ones out of these groups. Right, and it seems like, yeah, this this idea of exit counseling or at least this basic approach seemed to largely replace it, which which which sounds like a no brainer. Right, should we maybe do something more like counseling? And what we think of now is intervention with a family member we're worried about, or should we kidnap them with the

aid of some sort of third party? Um, you know, it seems certainly from from a legal and moral standpoint, uh, there's only one direction you should go in. And of course it also seems that the d programming had had

had a checkered success rate as well. Reminds me of some other stuff I was reading about the Scared Straight programs that of course we're quite big what I guess back in the the nineties, especially the idea that if you had like problem kids or kids that that were at risk, you would have somebody come in and scare them straight with a really scary talk about prison life and how um you know. Ultimately, some of the numbers

didn't subsequently did not support the idea that this was effective. Yeah, I can imagine. I think it comes down to the just the reality that that human beings are far more complicated than that. You know, you can't just scare someone straight you in order to move the away from from one way of life or worldview towards another. You can't.

You can't rescue them from from a particular you know, social group or ideology by essentially kidnapping them and um and just pointing in the other direction like they're an automaton. It just needs to be Oh, all you have to do is just get them, wind them up and point them in the right direction, and they'll be fine. Like that's just that's that's not really how people work. Well, Yeah, it just seems like a very top down way of

viewing your ability to influence other people. So if you want to steer somebody toward a path in life that you might very well correctly think would be much better for them in the long run and might make them much happier in the long run and make their loved ones happier in the long run, obviously, there are ways of doing that other than just trying to sort of like dominate and command them to move in that direction.

I mean, I mean, obviously sometimes you can influence people by by sort of dominating and commanding them, but you can also influence people with say positive incentives, reminding them of reminding them of all the good things and opportunities that are open to them in in in a freer life, outside of the strictures of whatever kind of you know,

culture or other thing. This is yeah, yeah, so it's this is ultimately I think in oversimplification, but it seems like the mind control D programming model was more based in the idea that something was done to an individual and that thing can be undone, you know, and um, you know, it's ultimately based in the in the the

simplistic fallacy of mind control and brainwashing. Now, as for how that relates to this Outer Limits episode, Um, you know, I think this episode, you know, ultimately has a dark view on life and uh, you know, one one in which you're going to be manipulated by one alien overlord or another you know, sort of you've got to serve

somebody vibe. Uh. It feels like they're striking a very anti D programming chord here, which I think is the chord to strike in your in your fiction, as our main character is is just D program quote unquote into serving to another cruel master. Well, one bit of complexity that this Outer Limits episode does get into is we didn't mention that they're actually multiple human parties involved in

um in the D programming process. So in this episode you have Brent Spiner, and yet he's playing this like brutal D programmer, who's you know, yelling at yelling at Evans, saying wake up, snap out of it. You know you're a human, and like cutting him with a knife and kicking him around and all this again trying to top down just like dominate and coerce him into into snapping out of it. But then the other side is alongside

them is evans wife from before the alien invasion. They had become separated, they didn't know what had happened to each other and uh and by getting reacquainted, she actually I think that the episode shows that she is more effective than Brent Spiner is in breaking through with him, and she's actually not not knowingly part of the alien plot to get him to assassinate she is also confused

about what's going on. That's right, So in a way, even though it has a cruel twist at the end the episode might sort of be making the point that you might have more success breaking through to somebody who has been uh who has been conditioned into a state of un freedom by offering them sort of like positive incentives of love and connection and reminding them of what's good about the other way of life, rather, you know, maybe more so than just like beating them and yelling

at them and trying to command them to be free. Yeah, in a way, it's a shame they didn't re explore this world in other episodes of the Outer Limits, because the nineties Outer Limits show they did this from time to time there there. Sometimes they would do a series of even like three or four episodes that took place within the same universe and uh and continued sometimes same characters or or same faction, same world like this would

have been. It would have been an interesting one for them to come back to and explore that compassion angle more and maybe give us some more uplifting ending. You know. Yeah, maybe that's how the humans actually do rebel successfully against the uh whatever whatever they're called, the alligator men. Yeah, give him a gift basket of saragon oil, and then that they would, they'll realize, Oh the Jrolem really do care about me? No, no, no, I didn't mean that

for them, I mean for each other. Yeah, they can mount the resistance than all right, well let's switch gears. Let's get into the next next anthology selection here, what do you have for his show? All right, well, I've got an episode of the Hammer House of Horror. Rob. Do you know the Hammer House of Horror? Yes, Now I have to say I've I've only watched the one episode, the one we're discussing here today. But um, but it's

a it's a it's a pretty fun little series. Uh this came out what so you know we're we're we're balanced right there on the edge, you know of the nineteen seventies in the nineteen eighties. Essentially it's a late nineties seventies production. Uh, comes to us from from Hammer, so it has that hammer you know, British horror drive vibe to it. But each episode is a different story. Um, and some of them have some pretty great casts. I mean they all, I think they all have a pretty

great cast. If one episode we have Peter Cushing and a young Brian Cox. If you're not sure what a young Brian Cox looks like, uh, this is an episode worth checking out. And there's another episode, by the way, titled Guardian of the abyss uh In the plot of this one involves John D's mirror, or a mirror that's supposed to be one of John D's mirrors. I didn't get a chance to watch it in full, but I had to see if what mirror they showed, and I

included a picture of it here for you, Joe. It it is, obviously, is not the fabled magic mirror, the Aztec mirror that that John D actually had. This is a real They really goth this one up. They had to make it look like a like a European haunted mirror. Yeah, it's got like a silver rim and a bunch of elaborate handles. Get out of here with that, give me that or gone face on it. Yeah. Yeah. But this episode that we're gonna talk about here is titled The

Mark of Satan. Yes, and boy does it have that hammer horror field. Like you say, it's got that late seventies British thing. It just this whole thing just like it smells like back bacon, you know, Heinz baked beans, it's all there. You can smell it through the film. So this episode, I guess I'll describe it first and then we can talk about what what this connected to for me. So this episode begins with a scene of

brain surgery. You've got a team of doctors who are opening up a patient's skull, and suddenly the patient, he seems to show signs of awareness. His eyes start to move scanning the room. He twitches. You see these sort of flickers of waxing consciousness, and then the patient starts to talk. In the middle of the brain surgery. He's moaning and he says, leave my soul alone. Solid opening.

They had me right there at the beginning. Yeah, we got a supernatural or potentially supernatural hospital drama, some sort of intense surgery with all sorts of tools and like clamps holding the character's head in place. Yeah, leave my soul alone. So next we meet our protagonist who is named Edwin Roared and Edwin works in the morgue at

the same hospital. He is assigned to process the cadaver of the patient from the surgery and the opening scene, and we learn in this in this next scene that the patient was someone named Samuel Holt now Roared is played by the actor Peter Mcinry, who was born in ninety and he's quite good in this. He plays a nice focal point of insanity, you know, that kind of that necessary character to so many weird tales where like

the madness is overtaking them. Um. I it was not really familiar with this guy, but he had a strong career on the British stage and on television. Among other things, he was in the nineteen seventy three horror anthology film Tales that Witness Madness And another interesting genre piece that he's credited to is a film I haven't seen, but now I'm super interested in, Footprints on the Moon from ninety five um, which also featured klas Kinski in a role.

It was a well received, seemingly surreal jallow film by Luigi Bezzoni, in which uh, the actor Florinda Bulcan plays a woman who is psychologically disturbed by these dreams she keeps having about an astronaut dying on the moon. Wow. Yeah, so I love that pitch. I'm intrigued. I've never heard of it. Uh, yeah, I gotta look that up. A couple of other actors have noted this one. Conrad Phillips, who lived twenty sixteen, plays um Dr Manders a delightfully

impish character. Yeah he's uh what, there's a partner at the big getting where he's like, well, gentlemen, we are looking at the mortal remains of an individualist. And then we also have Georgina Hale And this was born in nineteen forty three. She placed Stella. She was in a number of Kin Russell movies, including nineteen seventy one Is the Devil's Which Is, which is, of course an excellent and uh famed film, infamous I'm to understand, and infamous in some circles as well, but and and for a

long time hard hard to get your hands on. But at any rate, um, it's an a notable film, no matter where you stand on it, whether you want to to view it or or burn it. Well. So, getting back to the plot of the episode, we go through the autopsy of the patient from the opening scene, Samuel Holt, who was in brain surgery and said leave my soul alone. We uh. It is revealed that prior to his brain surgery, this patient, Samuel Holt, had tried to perform a self trepidation.

He attempted to create a hole in his own skull with a power drill, allegedly to relieve pressure in his brain. I think Dr Manders has some kind of comment about this. He's like, you know, pressure in the brain. Leads to a trip to the Old Iron Manga and while sewing up holds body after the autopsy, Edwin accidentally pricks his finger with the suture needle, and at first he doesn't think anything of this. He just puts some iodine on it. But when his boss finds out, his boss gets very upset.

He's like, uhh. He tells Edwin that he needs to go to casualty and uh, I think tells him he needs to get his tetanus shots and a bunch of stuff because well. It turns out that when Holt was dying of a blood clot in the brain, Holt himself had believed that this this was caused by an infection, an infection that he called an evil virus. So the guy who said leave my soul alone, he believed he was infected with a virus of evil. Now, a couple of threads begin to develop in this episode that reflects

something about Edwin's deteriorating psychological state. So one thing is that Edwin perceives a strange pattern emerging everywhere he goes. He notices the number nine. There's an office sweepstakes that pays out a prize of nine pounds. He has to store Holt's body and freezer number nine. He has to sew up a body using nine stitches to every three inches,

and things like that. Even more alarmingly, he sometimes believes he can hear radio signals in his head and these are seemingly broadcasted from a weather vane on the roof of the hospital. Beyond that, he starts to believe that crowds of ominous strangers wearing sunglasses or sort of following

him around town, watching him and menacing him. Now, eventually we see his home situation, which is that Edwin is single and he lives in a house with his extremely grumpy and judgmental mother, along with a tenant who lives in the house named Stella, and this is this character

is played by Georgina Hale. Edwin at some point tells Stella about you know, he's explaining the delusions he's experiencing, and she, very unhelpfully is pretty much like, oh yeah, yep um, And so it seems like everywhere he goes things nobody's really intervening to make things better. So his

psychological state worsens. He comes to believe that his mother has somehow infected him with an evil virus that is attacking his brain, and he believes that she may have killed his father years ago with the same virus, though it seems his father actually died of meningitis. At one point, Edwin visits a priest to seek counsel, and then the priest very helpfully decides to tell him about the passage in the Book of Revelation concerning the number of the Beast.

So it's like, oh, yes, uh, this man is offerings from some form of psychosis. What he needs is the Book of Revelation. Yes, it's like, but the faith offers many directions for your your your your confusion and obsession that may tell you about it. So from here things

get worse and worse. Edwin ends up doing murders. Uh. He's having these full blown delusions that a a coven of Satan worshiping doctors and acquaintances of his have put a virus in his brain in order to control him and that they want him to eat a baby for Satan.

But then there's a strange so you know, this could just be a story about a man losing his mind, but the the episode develops that the same exact delusion we discover was held by the man from the surgery at the beginning of the episode, Samuel Holt, And in the end, Edwin, like Holt, tries to relieve himself of the pressure by performing a self trepidation with an electric drill, and he also, like Holt, ends up in neurosurgery and echo of the opening scene, and the doctors are operating

on Edwin's brain and we hear a moaning plea leave my soul alone, m And the ending is very ambiguous. I think the viewer is meant to understand that there actually is no Satanic coven and that this is in

Edwin's head. But I think the unanswered question in the narrative is whether Edwin was somehow actually infected with this demonic obsession and and this this imagery when he pricked his finger while he was working on Holt's body, It sort of raises this question of would it be possible for this this series of demonic images and ideas to somehow infect a person like an evil virus. Now, I don't know of any realistic mechanism by which something like

this would happen. I kind of doubt there is, but I would like to explore a sort of related idea that that is quite real, which has to do with the idea of a relationship between virus like mechanisms and the deep contents of the human brain, even things that somebody might think of as the soul. Now, um, the fact that this episode centers around round trepid Nation I found kind of interesting, especially since it came out in

Britain in nineteen eighty. This would have been right after the Countess of Welliams and uh and Mark Amanda Fielding first ran for British Parliament on the platform Trap Nation

for the National health advocating research into its benefits. UM. She famously trepanned herself in nineteen seventy, following Dutch Trap Nation proponent Bart Huges's example, and UM, you know this, UH may sound a bit crazy, but as as Michael Paulin pointed out in his excellent book How to Change Your Mind, Fielding has proven herself to be an effective drug policy reformer UH. In subsequent years lobbyist and research coordinator.

In she founded the Foundation to Further Consciousness, later renamed the Beckley found Nation, which supports neuroscientific research. Her recent and current work, Paul And writes, shifted away from trepid Nation and towards the possibilities posed by psychedelics. So you think it's possible this episode was influenced by by her famous advocacy for for drilling a hole in your skull. Yes, yeah, I I I would. I would almost bet on it.

You know, it seems like the time, you know, like a lot of horror uh fiction, you know, it speaks to what's going on in the public mindset, and so I feel like there's just there's just too much trepin nation in the in the in the in the air for this not to be kind of at least a partial response to it. Not that it has anything particularly, you know, deep to say about trepid Nation itself, but it's it's it leans. It's a it's just a concept that leans, uh, that allows one to lean into the

horror a bit. You know. It's it's just it's like, uh, you know, it's like fly paper for for horror writing. Now, if you'd like to hear more about about trepin nation though, we we did an episode several years back titled The Tone of Madness UM that gets into all of that. And you know, it's sort of the the older historical idea of trepidation as well as um the more modern

twentieth century advocates of it. But you know, the basic idea came down in the modern sense that you have you known increase of blood in the brain that could bring about altered states of consciousness, um, etcetera. It's a it's a really fascinating, um fascinating topic. To be clear that this is what was claimed by its advocates, not that we're advocating trepidation, right, there's no I don't don't believe there's any scientific evidence that it actually works, but

it had its vocal proponents. But if you're even halfway tempted, I think you should you should take you should just follow the model of a Manda Fielding, who who again has turned away from UM from advocating trepid nation and looking more into uh actual you know, legitimate research into psychedelics. Uh. So you know ultimately that that's a whole area of research that does not require drilling a hole in your skull.

And it goes without saying, don't drill a hole in your skull, especially based on anything that you hear on this podcast or see on the hammer House of Horror. Right, yeah, don't make major life decisions based on the Hammer House of Horror series. But on the subject of viruses in mind. Uh, this this does bring up a really interesting question of like, did you ever wonder, you know, down at the cell level, at the molecular level, what is the mechanism of say,

memory formation. You know, our memories to to a great extent or a lot of what makes us who we are. And so you might say that in a metaphorical since you know, memories are a big part of what would make your soul. And so I was reading about some interesting research and a couple of articles from January. One of them was a news feature in Nature by Sarah Reardon called cells hack virus like protein to communicate, and another one was in The Atlantic by Ed Young called

brain cells share information with virus like capsules. And these two articles were in turn summarizing and reacting to the pretty much simultaneous publication of a couple of scientific papers in the journal Cell, both concerning a very interesting gene and its associated protein, which is known as ARC ARC A r C. One of these papers was by Ashley at All in in Cell, and the other one was by Petution at All. Now, the gene known as ARC

is present in all kinds of different organisms. You you can find different versions of it, saying human cells, in the cells of mice, in the cells of flies like Drosophila flies, in the cells of reptiles and birds. And it apparently encodes a product known as the ARC protein, where ARC stands for activity regulated cytoskeleton associate DID protein and ARC has been known about since the nineteen nineties, but some recent discoveries have made it seem even more interesting.

Uh And and there's an interesting scene that ed Young describes in his article about this where he's summarizing the research on one of the authors on one of these papers, a neuroscientist named Jason Shepherd who works at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, who was studying the ARC gene and its associated proteins in mice. In the

I believe the in the motor neurons of mice. And what the article describes is that Jason Shephard was observing the proteins that were made by this gene under a under a highly powerful microscope, and when he first saw the structures, what he thought was that they looked like viruses. Now, of course, these are not viruses, these are not external infectious agents. These are structures that are produced by the

natural cells in a mouse's body. So what both of these papers were looking at were that they were studying what are known as extra cellular vesicles. And these are sort of little chunks of cell membranes that separate from their original host cells and then they go off somewhere and do their own things, so that you know, they actually are a part of a cell that leaves the cell and floats free of it to maybe go connect with another cell or do something else in the body.

And extracellular vesicles can be found all throughout the body, but there are a lot of questions about what they do. We don't really know a lot uh, And apparently these two teams were looking at these these extracellular vessels that were released by various neurons cells in the nervous system to find out what they were doing, and they independently found that the vesicles that are released by neurons in

both flies and mice contain this ARC gene. Now it's interesting because there is already existing research to show some things about this ARC gene, for example, that the ARC gene helps neurons form connections between one another, and of course, connections between neurons underlie a lot of what the brain does. And there is also research to show very interesting macro behavioral effects of the ARC gene. For example, mice that are genetically altered to lack the ARC gene have difficulty

with memory formation tasks. It seems like they can't learn, they can't make long term memories. So, say, if you train a mouse to run a maze, if they don't have the ARC gene, they can't make the ARC protein. They apparently can't learn anything about the maze that sticks with them. They might have to, you know, do the

maze as if for the first time every time. So it seems that ARC is very important in whatever process it is in the brain that turns experiences into structural changes in the brain that would you know, allow you to say, cement a memory that could be referenced later on, but I mentioned that y'all article describes the scene where this researcher is looking at the at the arc proteins under the microscope, and that when he examined them, he saw what looked like these these hollow shells that very

much resembled viruses. Specifically, they looked like textbook illustrations of HIV, which of course is a type of virus known as a retrovirus. And apparently a shepherd ran these images by some viral experts and they did confirm that yes, these shells that were being made by these cells within the mice's bodies looked a lot like the protein shells the

capsids that you would find around viruses like HIV. So apparently, the arc genes that you would find in animals like mice today, it descends from an ancient class of ancestral genes, types of retro transposons, and they can be found in the genomes of all kinds of animals. As I said, but these genes are very interesting in that they can behave almost like independent infectious agents. They can copy themselves and then insert those copies of themselves somewhere else within

the host's genome. But Apparently, at some point these ancestral retro transposons gain the ability not only to copy and paste themselves elsewhere within the genome, but to build a protein shell, essentially to build themselves a spaceship that would surround this gene, surround this length of genetic material, and then allow this cage protected strand of genetic information to leave its original host cell to fly off into space

and and to go boldly. And ed Young writes that this actually is believed to be the origin of retroviruses. So in a way, we have these genes within our bodies that are actually cousins of wild, infectious retroviruses that infect people and harm them. Uh And and this apparently is why the shells or the capsids made by these stretches of DNA are so similar. The arc gene that you find in animals is apparently very similar to a

viral gene called a GAG gene. And and again this is the gene that codes for the construction of this this protein shell, the capsid that protects the genetic material of a virus and allows it to get into a

cell and infect it. So what we have here is that there are cells within the brains or the nervous systems of animals as diverse as you know, from mice to to Drosophila two flies that use this gene similar to a gene found in viruses, to build this protein shell or capsid, this structure to surround a strand of RNA based information like viruses do, and then send that RNA information to another cell, again like viruses do so, so in a way, you could look at the the

brain cells as using a very similar structure to what is used in viruses to sort of in act one another with something with some kind of RNA information. So why would cells in the brain be doing this? And one possibility is that it's a way for neurons to sort of control each other, to exert some kind of pressure or influence on each other. Of course, in the case of a virus, a virus wants to infect a new cell so that it makes more copies of the virus.

But in this case, a neuron could maybe use ARC to send RNA to a nearby cell, which upon arrival would influence which genes are activated within that cell. Now, there's still tons of questions that we don't have answered about what what is going on here, like what is exactly this RNA cargo for, what does it do? What does it do exactly? Though, again it's very interesting to view this virus like behavior at the at the cell level uh in light of what we know about the

macro behavioral effects of the ARC gene. Once again, if you disable ARC, a mouse without apparently can't learn or make memories. Fascinating, So we have this this this kind of ancestral potential, ancestral viral component to uh to to to some of the like the basic attributes of what do we think to think to think of having a mind or having certainly having consciousness, but even having just

like a functional animal brain, right though. A very interesting thing is, though lots of animals have ARC, they're not all descended from a common ARC ancestor, or at least not within the animal line. So fruit flies have ARC genes,

mike mice have ARC genes, Humans have ARC genes. But it appears that say flies and vertebrates acquired these genes, these similar genes from different sources uh in uh to quote ed young in separate events that took place millions of years apart, and yet they've both got this stuff so it seems like it is something that is probably liable to be co opted by by animal gene gnomes in a way that is very useful, such that it

happened multiple times in the history of life. And so there are all these really interesting possibilities about what this could mean in terms of learning more about how our brains work and how our bodies evolved, but also in even potentially in in therapeutics, because as we were talking about, ARC has been highlighted as possibly playing a role in a number of neurological disorders, including some age related loss

of mental capacity. So Jason Shephard is quoted in in ned Young's article as as observing that the brains of young mice produce way more ARC protein than the brains of old mice. And it looks like that possibly by inducing an increased supply of ARC protein in an older mouse's brain, the older mouse's brain will show improved abilities to learn and adapt, maybe acting a little bit more like a younger mouse's brain, having that uh, that more

plastic potential. So I found this fast sinating that it could quite literally be the case that there's something pretty much like a virus in the brain that makes our minds what they are. That's fascinating, and it of course to now to bring it back to Hammer House of Horrors. Um not. Obviously, nobody's making the point that this research means that this episode is entirely possible or practical or anything that. Yes, proof of the episode um revealed, but

uh no it um. It does make you uh uh you know, sort of reflect on the seemingly outrageous notion here, maybe being a little more reasonable than one might assume just one watching it. I mean, obviously I can't imagine how arc proteins are. Something similar would make you, uh, you know, start obsessing over numerology and feeling like you have there's a there's an outside pressure from people in

sunglasses for you to eat a baby. But but still, uh you know, the the basic premise, uh you know, matches up with this idea a little bit segue to something totally different. I remember when I was a kid one time. This is one of my hotel cable memories.

Do you have hotel cable memories from being Yeah, one of mine was we went somewhere we had the hotel channels and I saw an episode of Hammer House of Horror, when I was way too young, and I don't remember much about it except that it was an episode that had a werewolf in it. And then the real twist was, uh, so you think, okay, werewolf, somebody's gonna get you know, bit by the werewolf, gonna get mauled, and that's the

real that's the shocker at the end. But instead somebody got killed with an axe in the werewolf episode, just about like a guy with an axe. I wonder if that was the Peter Cushing episode. I think that one involves the animal human hybrids. I don't think it had Peter Cushing because I think I would have recognized him at least from Star Wars. I you know, this whole mention of this episo that it does make me wonder, like what was in the waters too to inspire these

other elements. You know, we can point to the Trepid nation influence that would have been a president in the

news and so forth. But this idea of of a virus, an evil virus um it reminds me a little bit of the plot of The Creeping Flesh from nineteen seventy three, which had Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee in it, and it involves the development of a serum against evil, the idea that that you could you could that I think Peter Cushing's characters working on developing one and about to have a big breakthrough, like where where did this strange? I mean, I guess it's kind of a you know,

a dumb idea in some respect is very uh. It produces the the idea of of evil to something that you know, kind of kind of like getting back to the brainwashing, uh de programming idea that something has been done and it can be undone like that, that evil. It's a broad tent concept and in human civilization, uh that we could find some sort of underlying cause of it, cause behind it and uh and and effectively remove it and everything would be fine. You know, sometimes the dumb

idea is a brilliant idea. There's almost something exactly like that in John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness. You know that we have to discover like they discover essentially a jar of Satan. It's like this physical substance or it's not quite it's something I think they call it, like the anti god and there's anti God. Yeah, there's some very

loose uh pseudo scientific connections. Actually, well, I mean talking about real physics, but the connections I guess would be the pseudo part where they're saying, oh, yeah, so there's a particle in an anti particle in in modern physics, and so you have the same thing as true, like God is like the particle, and then you've got an anti particle anti God that they come together and they annihilate. Yeah. I agree. There a dumb idea taken too to the limit.

You know, you can make it very entertaining, or sometimes a kind of dumb or traditional idea given a new code of paint using um, you know, some current scientific buzzwords, uh, you know, or something from the headlines like that can make all the difference as well, because the basic idea here is like, is a curse idea a contagious curse. Man catches curse from cursed individual and then has to

deal with the curse. It's not unlike many werewolf stories, except instead of the curse of turning into a wolf uh and killing people, it's this, uh, this curse of of of these these various more you know, I guess,

some more obscure, more mysterious um psychological issues popping up. Yeah, and that ultimately makes it more terrifying because it's these are these are things that that we can point to in the real world that he's suffering, you know, like a sudden obsession over things, uh, you know, a change

and behavior consciousness. Well, and in the light of the scientific stuff we were talking about today, I think, I don't know, it sort of invites you to rethink the idea of what a what a virus or infectious agent is.

I mean, we naturally think of infectious agents as things that are bad and harmful because I mean usually when it's like it is, uh, you know, a pathogen in the body that is infecting you in order to make copies of itself and it doesn't really care how much, you know, if it makes you miserable or debilitates you

someway in the process, that's obviously bad. But there are also these essentially things that function like infectious agents, that have very similar behaviors that are within the body, and they might even be things that make you who you are in a very inextricable way. Yeah, he kind of driving home what you know, to come back around to Heed Young and his work, the idea that you know, we are multitudes. You know that that this idea of there being this single thing and this is what we are. Uh,

you know, is obviously fallacy. But then you know when you start looking at like the the organism itself, well, there is the organism, but then they are all the additional organisms within it that make make it up and and influence the ultimate presentation and experience, right, I mean, so you you could make distinctions that are valid distinctions. You can look at a cell in the body and say this is an animal cell, this is a you know,

mammalian cell, and then this is a bacterial cell. But in fact, I think he makes a good case that when we think about what we are, it should probably actually include both, Like the bacteria are also us. Yeah. Now, if you're interested in watching Hammer House of Horror, our producers Seth informs us that as of this recording, it is currently available on peacock. Uh. I was looking around and I found it available to to view as a part of a few different streaming packages online, you know,

various channels. Uh, so it's it's definitely out there. Um, you know, multiple episodes. This is the only one I've seen, and and I don't have the benefit of your your your hotel cable experience of of watching uh, watching it earlier in life. But but it looks like a really it's a really shows. Let me say, check out the titles, check out the cast members. Uh, there are several of these that look really interesting. Got that classic British crime? Yeah, alright, Well,

we'd love to hear from everyone. Of course, do you have favorite episodes of the Hammer, House of Horror, favorite episodes of the nineties Outer Limits series you'd like to chat about with us, We'll let us know. We'd we'd love to hear from you. And of course, if you have thoughts about the scientific or cultural topics that we touched on in these episodes, Um, everything's fair game, right in We've we'd we'd love to discuss it with you. Our core episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind published

on Tuesday's and Thursdays. Check them out in the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed, and that is where you'll find them wherever you get your podcast. We also have Listener Mail on Monday's, Artifact on Wednesdays, and Weird House Cinema on Friday's Huge Thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, just to say hello, you can email us at contact

at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for My heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listening to your favorite shows.