Ep. 19: Halloween Horror With Rein Brooks, Audio Description Writer

Happy Halloween! To celebrate spooky season, Alex and Lee chat with Rein Brooks, audio description writer for “Birth/Rebirth”, “The Royal Hotel”, and other films. We discuss your favorite horror films and the unique challenges of writing audio description for the horror genre.

Note: When Rein discusses The Walking Dead description he is referring to a sample he did, not the actual description.

Audio Description Project: https://adp.acb.org/
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Transcript

Lee Pugsley  
It's spooooooky season! Happy Halloween everyone, and welcome back to Episode 19 of The Dark Room, where two blind cinephiles illuminate the sighted. I'm Lee Pugsley.

Alex Howard  
I'm Alex Howard.

Lee Pugsley  
And this is a podcast hosted by two legally blind guys for film lovers of all abilities. And today because it is spooky season, we are going to have a little fun with horror. And we have a very special guest. So Alex, why don't you introduce our guest?

Alex Howard  
Yeah, so today we have Rein Brooks, who is a relatively new audio description writer for Audio Eyes. And we recently watched a movie he wrote the description track for called Birth/Rebirth, which is a new horror movie from IFC. And it is now one of my favorite movies of 2023. So good. So, welcome, Rein. 

Rein Brooks  
Hi, I'm so happy to be here. 

Alex Howard  
So Lee and I recently watched Birth/Rebirth, I guess we can start with that. I really, really enjoyed it. It's kind of a take on Frankenstein. The story, you've seen it, uh, you know, many times. Re-Animator, Frankenstein, all these things. It does a different take on the story of Frankenstein. And I really really liked it a lot, between the gore and morality questions of it. I don't want to go into spoilers or anything. But I'm assuming you watched it through once before you wrote the track. So how did you like the movie? And then how did you approach writing the track for it? 

Rein Brooks  
So I started writing a description with the expectation based on what my boss told me that I was going to start with sitcoms, and maybe some romantic comedies. Things that are very talky and not very visual, and not very weird, because he was like, "You're new, you don't have any experience with this. You just showed up in my email, like, begging me for work." So I was like ready to get an episode of, you know, Abbott Elementary, something like that. And so when he sent me this file, I was pretty excited, because this is the stuff that I was thinking in the long term that I wanted to work on. I'm really interested in horror, and I'm especially interested in horror that has a lot of cinematography and that has a lot of psychological stuff to it. And so I watched it for the first time and I had zero expectations. And I loved it. I think Marin Ireland did a fantastic job in this role. I really liked that lady from Scrubs, she had sort of a more, more dramatic role in the movie. And I don't know, the longer I watched it, the more I was like, "Wait a minute, is this gonna be good?" Because I had no background, I'd never heard of it. And I just knew he was giving it to me as like a trial project. It's like "Oh, we have plenty of time for this. If you screw up the description, then we can have somebody else write it." And so I went into it with zero knowledge. And I was so excited. The art direction is really good. I like how the movie looks. And my first watch-through I was just like, I just sort of mapped in my head what I want the description to be like, what am I going to introduce at what times, especially when there's elements that you see over and over and you don't have time for. Like, it was my first movie ever. And so it really kind of solidified the way that I go into description writing now, which is like, you know, how am I going to name our characters? Like, how am I going to name our locations? What kind of verbs am I going to use to describe these particular characters and the way they move through the scenes? It really taught me a lot. I super loved it. And I'm forgetting the rest of your question. Alex, can you repeat it for me?

Alex Howard  
Oh, just I think you answered it. Just basically, you know, on your first watch, you must have been really excited after watching it. But then when you go back through, what's your process? Are you taking notes when you watch the first time? Or do you just watch it all the way through like you would a normal movie and then go back and take them?

Rein Brooks  
I take mental notes. So sometimes I will, like, a word will come into my head and I'll be like, "Oh, I want to use that. That person is stalking or creeping or shuffling or staggering." I want to make sure I'm doing that. So sometimes I'll write down little character notes or be like, "What's going to be the defining feature that I use to talk about the character?" And that one was tricky, because the first time we see one of the main characters, she's in PPE, she's completely covered except for her eyes. So I was like, "Okay, well, she's gonna have to be brown-eyed, that's gonna have to be her descriptor until we hear her name." I don't know what it actually stands for. But like that paper stuff with the mask and the hat and the gloves and everything, like we couldn't see what her complexion was, we couldn't see her hair, we couldn't see anything except for her little eyes sticking out of the, the surgical gear. So that one was easy. But Marin Ireland's character, I definitely was like making a lot of mental notes about how I wanted to talk about her, because I like having a little sort of like... Like having a little word cloud in my head for the characters, especially when it's a character driven movie like this, a relationship driven movie like this. You know, we have a character that's notably energetic in a different way than the other characters. I like to kind of try to map out how that vocabulary is going to work in my head as we go. And there's other things, like there was a particular thing in this movie, which you should cut out if you think it's too much of a spoiler. There's grab bars in, in the bathroom, in -- the doctor, the pathologist -- in her apartment And there's also really dated decor, like sponge-painted walls, a brass and glass chandelier from the '70s. Like, carpet, in rooms where there isn't usually carpet, those almond and oak cabinets that are super dated like very much '70s and '80s. I had no room to describe it. But like, as I was watching the movie, I was like, "Oh, it means something that this 40 year old woman is living in this apartment that was decorated 50 years ago. I really want people to pick up on that somehow." And so I try to figure out what am I going to try to sprinkle in, especially about the art direction, because that's my biggest interest. But I go real slow on my second and third and fourth watches like, I just go minute by minute, like what's happening. And if I make a big change somewhere down the line, I have the wonders of Google Docs and I can just do a find and replace if I want to like call a room something different, call a person something different, you know, go back and change when I mentioned a particular detail that comes back over and over. I usually do it like, one watch-through, real watch-through, no stopping. And sometimes I'll even leave the room. Like I live in a studio apartment, I can go like stand where I am right now in my kitchen and like have the movie playing behind me and like paint or do something else. Because I like to think of like, "What what would I miss if I couldn't see it? Like, what parts of the movie where I'm like, "Wait a minute, what was that?" Because those are the movies, the parts that I know I need to describe. And if I can tell what's happening from just the sound, then I know that like, "Okay, this event, I don't actually need to talk very much. I can like, I can let the sound effects and the music and the dialog kind of do the work." And then the second watch is where I go second by second. And you know, it takes me sometimes hours to do like five minutes. And then at the end of that one, once I have the full full script, if I have time, I will give it a whole watch. Read what I have, make sure it fits. And like correct anything that I don't like. I don't always do the third one because my workplace does a QC with other people. But often I will try to fit it in because I think it makes the QC shorter, because it brings me you know something polished. I'll read something out loud and be like, "Wait a minute, that's really hard to say. like, there's too many S's in that sentence" or something. It's a three watch problem for me usually, sometimes two.

Alex Howard  
I have one more question, and then I'll turn it over to Lee. But that's interesting what you said about the grab bars and the furniture because I didn't even notice that. Since the description was cut, I didn't notice it when I was watching it. But it's interesting, you brought up, the first character you described her as 'brown-eyes,' I think. And when you were describing her when I was watching the movie, I was like, "Wait, like, I can't see the eye color." And I was thinking, I know they, for a while they were describing race in audio description. And then for some reason I've noticed lately, they've stopped doing that. But I was gonna ask you, was that the only reason you described the eyes, that that was when we first saw her we could only see her eyes? Or is that an audio description sort of tactic now, where they don't describe the race so much as the eye color. Because I know that character wasn't white, but the other woman was white.

Rein Brooks  
She was and this was my first script ever. So... And every company has different guidelines about this. My company does not explicitly put like those kinds of labels on people unless there's a major plot reason. And I argued that there was, because I think, at risk of doing spoilers -- cut this if you need to -- that Birth/Rebirth is a movie that is aware of Tuskegee, it's aware of the Depo shot trials, it's aware of like the medical mistreatment, specifically of both, like Black and Latino women in the United States, when it comes to reproductive health care. And so when I saw the script specifically requested the actor be both black and Latina, I was like, "Okay, well, they found one. And like, that's who they cast. So like we should say, right?" So at first I was just like, I just said that about her. You know, because all you can see is her eyes, and then you can see her hair. And that that kind of telegraphed that to me. Plus, you know, she speaks Spanish, her name is Spanish. The script tells us that she's Latina, because of her name and the dialect she speaks. So we're set on that. But we don't know that she's Black. And she's very pale. She's got sort of loose curly hair. I would have to kind of resort to phrenonology to describe her face in a way that told us that. And I was like, "I don't like doing that either." And I was like, "Guys, can I just say it?" And the company I work for does not let you do that. Because I think it's very subjective. Like, how did I know that? I looked it up. That's how I knew. And I also looked at the script and who they were requesting to play that role. And so that was a point of contention for me. That was the only thing that I really fought for, besides the cabinets and the dated department decor that I did not get, was that I wanted to say the words Afro Latina, about -- I don't remember her name anymore -- the nurse. Because I think the dynamic between her and the white doctor is marked. And it's not always explicit in the script. Sometimes it's very subtle, like there's a moment with her and a surgeon, like a white surgeon. Maybe not a surgeon, maybe an OB/GYN, and she's with like a patient. And she like has to act really nice, even though like she knows she's right and he's wrong. She's trying to avoid like her patient getting hurt. And that I thought was so subtle that the dynamic was not captured by the script, it was something that like you kind of had to look at, to understand. So that's tricky. Some places will say, "Yes, go ahead and do it." Some places will say, describe everybody's complexion exactly, like with a color, which I think is okay, but doesn't really tell us what we need to know about that character in particular. But I also see the side of like, how do I know that about her without looking it up? I don't want to be somebody who is like making judgment calls that are wrong. So there's, there's quite a bit of discussion about that. I think for Birth/Rebirth, in particular, I would have liked to just say it, because I think it gives the movie sort of a... It's definitely a post Get Out horror movie. It's a socially aware horror movie that sort of knows about the United States and the medical establishment. And it's a very big part of the atmosphere. But there's lots of situations where I don't think it's necessary at all. The reason we chose brown eyes in this case, was just that they're the only thing you can see about her. So you have to say something that strikes you. So with the dorctor, gosh, I wish I remember these characters names. She's got her hair covered, so I couldn't talk about her hair. But the thing that struck me the most was the way that the bright light hit her face, the way they introduced her, she looks not well. So I called her 'pale' or 'sallow' or -- vetoed 'drawn' because they said it's a homophone. And there's some discussion about like, "Is it distracting to use a word that has a homophone that is more commonly used?" You know, drawn, like with a pencil? 

Alex Howard  
Yeah. 

Rein Brooks  
But like, I try to look at a physical feature that is why they chose the actor, why they lit the actor that way. And that is my ideal way to introduce the character. I felt much better about the way I talked about Marin Ireland's character because we could see her. So I was like, "Oh, yes, of course, pale, sallow, sunken," whatever I said about her, whatever adjective I used, I felt better about that one. Brown-eyed nurse, she was just completely covered except for her eyes. So you could have also just said 'the nurse' until she gets named, but there's a million nurses around. And so we just picked the thing that a sighted person could identify about her until it was time to name her. And I did eventually work in her hair texture, which, I hope told that story to someone out there. But yeah, it's tricky when there's rules about that. I want to give the blind or the visually impaired audience sort of the experience that sighted people have watching it. And that means sort of like walking that line between describing sort of discrete features and explaining what those features mean, together.

Alex Howard  
That's interesting, because as a low vision viewer, I'm like, not so concerned with the politics. I'm just trying to keep track of who's who. 

Rein Brooks  
Mmm, yeah.

Alex Howard  
Like, brown-eyed girl, I'm like, "Okay, I can't see her eye color. So I'm assuming she's the one on screen," I have to fill in the gaps. So it's like for me, like, the race would help me. "Okay, I can see her race. So I know that's who we're talking about, but I know it gets tricky with like, is this actually the actresses race? You know, you need to make sure everything's accurate for that reason, too. So it does get interesting in terms of like politics, but then also like helping low vision people keep track of who's who. And I think for someone blind, you know, when they hear the brown-eyed girl, that every time you say that they refer back to that phrase. But for me, since I'm able to see some, I'm like, using my eyes to locate who you're talking about, if that makes sense.

Rein Brooks  
Oh, that's very interesting, because the QC I get is both, both of the people that are blind and QC my work are totally blind. And so it's, it's really good to have perspectives from people who aren't, because I don't know exactly what the split is. But it seems like a lot of you can sort of see some things. And that really changes your experience with the description. I'm really going to try to seek out more of those perspectives, because I really want my stuff to have a really good sort of reach in terms of like people who have seen before, people who have not seen before, people who can see some, people who can see nothing. Like, I really wanted to work well for everyone. How do you feel about force naming? Like if I had just been like, you know, she's not gonna say her name for 15 minutes. So like, let's just throw it in right now. Brown-eyed nurse, say her name, and then the scene continues. Would that be distracting for you? Or would that be helpful?

Alex Howard  
I think it would be helpful. But what do you think Lee?

Lee Pugsley  
That's interesting, because generally speaking, I'm okay with characters being identified by their physical description if their name hasn't been mentioned, and I don't have a problem with them not naming the character until the character is actually named in the movie or TV show. So for me, I like it that way, because I think it could be a little distracting cuz it's like the nurse, you know, Mona, let's say. Then I'm like, "Oh, who's Mona? We haven't heard her name yet. So I guess that's Mona." But I might be thinking about that. And that might be a little distracting for me. I will also say, though, that because, you know, I am an actor and a director and a writer and all those things, that names for me are very easy to keep track of, because when you're doing any of those things, you just have to keep track of a bunch of characters mentally anyway. So yeah, I think that it would be different for each low vision viewer as to what they prefer. I think it is a preference. There's obviously not a right preference or a wrong preference, but it's just a preference. And I think the tricky thing about that is, how do you toe the line? And how do you balance that? So if some people find it distracting to hear the name before it's been mentioned, and then there's other people that would like the name so that they can keep track of the character, what do you do with that to please all sides?

Rein Brooks  
It's a hard line to walk on. And for me, my biggest fear is being condescending. I think that would drive me absolutely nuts as an audience person. So I don't force name very often. That's what they call it, when you put the name in before the media actually says it. The one movie where I did it liberally was, it's not out yet. So I can't talk about it. But it was so bad. But like, like the script was a mess. And like, you can sort of tell that there were like, elements that were added way after the fact to try to set up a sequel, there was like characters that were in the script, they were the same character, but then they sort of decided at the last minute, I guess, to turn them into several characters. Like, and they didn't say the main guy's name until the third act. And I was like, "Okay, that's enough of calling this guy like --". And I don't like to give them a name that is not objective. So when I first started reading it, I was like, "Okay, this guy is like really playing this sort of like masculine maverick role, he's gonna be 'the Gunslinger,' we're gonna call him that." And then like, that's not a very good practice, I shouldn't be giving him sort of a subjective name like that. So he was like, the guy in the trench coat for the first hour of the movie. And I had to say, the guy in the trench coat over and over. And then a bunch more characters showed up also wearing trench coats. And I was like, "Okay, nuh-uh, force naming him as soon as it comes on stream. Sorry, Kevin, you're gonna be Kevin, because that's two syllables. And guy in a trench coat is five." So some of it depends on the way the script was handled. And I often find that movies that are from a traditional perspective, well structured and put together, will give you the name early enough that force naming is sort of an extraneous problem, you don't really need to think about it. And some really good artsy movies will never name the character. And then you have to come up with a solution for that. But --

Alex Howard  
Or the character name is like the protagonist, like intentionally. 

Rein Brooks  
Yes, exactly. You can find something that somebody else says about them. Like, I had like a movie recently, where the guy was like, "You sound like you're from the South, or you sound like you're from," I don't remember what state it was. He like, names the guy's accent. And then until the guy was named, I was like, "Ah, yes, the Southerner or the West Virginian" or whatever he was. And sometimes you can just pick up on the rest of the script without using the name. Recently, they had to edit out me calling somebody the scumbag because there was profanity in his name. But that was the only thing anybody ever called him so far. So I was like, "Well, this is gonna be 'the guy' until he's named in 10 minutes." Naming conventions are very interesting to me. And I'm always trying to figure out the way to make them as seamless as I can. Can you guys think of like a time when you've seen a naming convention that was really good or really distracting?

Alex Howard  
I mean, I like it when they say the name as soon as possible. So it helps me keep track of who's who.

Lee Pugsley  
If they don't say the name right away, I like it when audio describers refer to the physical description that they first introduced the character as. So for example, in Birth/Rebirth, the character whose face is covered is identified as the brown-eyed woman. So maybe in future scenes until they name her, you know, she could be referred to as the brown-eyed woman, because that's the association that a blind or low vision user would have to follow who that character is. But I also realized that may not work due to time constraints. And you know, if you have three seconds to say something, the brown-eyed woman is a lot of syllables. So it's tricky, I guess, to figure out how to navigate that. And as you're talking about all this, it really makes me think about the challenge that I'm sure exists within finding the right vocabulary with the right number of syllables, for the allotted time you have to describe something. Because I know that sometimes you have hardly any time to describe a character or situation.

Rein Brooks  
It's, hmm... So I'm thinking, I'm looking at the Birth/Rebirth script right now. And she is Celie. She's the brown-eyed nurse. Then when they introduce the daughter, and this is very shortly before we get to hear her name, we hear the daughter's name first. And 'the brown-eyed nurse' is four syllables. 'Lila's mom' is only three syllables. And I also like, when there's like two characters whose, you hear the voices together a lot and you know that they're related. Sometimes I will slip the relationship between them into the the naming convention. So I did that once. She was the brown-eyed nurse every time we talked about her, until she became Lila's mom for one, just one time. And then after that she was Celie. It's, I do try to keep it consistent with just using the same thing. Like at first I was like, "Oh, well, I want to sneak more description in there. Like I want to add something so that like, you have an idea of what she looks like," which you know, kind of shapes how the other characters respond to it right? But I sort of learned right away that what you're talking about is kind of the way to do it, Lee, is to, if you're going to have a description that's not the name, stick to it. So you don't send people to long distracting trains of thought about who I'm talking about.

Lee Pugsley  
I do like the fact that you did identify the relationship to like Lila's mom, because I always appreciate it when an audio describer will call out a relationship. Even if it's not right away. It's like, you know, "Lila's brother walks across the room" or something like that, where it calls out the relationship. So then if I am confused about what is the connection between these two characters, it does help me to reinforce, "Okay, that's the relationship, they're siblings, or that's so and so's boss, or so and so's neighbor."

Alex Howard  
Lee, what did you think of the movie?

Lee Pugsley  
I liked the movie as a whole. I'll be honest, and say that just because I'm a marginal horror fan, I'm not like a diehard horror fan, it may not have been completely for me. That being said, I identify a lot of really good things going on in the movie. I think that it has a very interesting and thought provoking script that brings up a lot of moral and ethical questions. The spin on the Frankenstein story is done in a way that we haven't seen before in this exact retelling. I thought that the relationship between the two women was really fascinating to watch and to see how it unfolds. There was a really good level of tension in so many of the scenes that really kept the viewer compelled and drawn in. I thought that the performances were fantastic. And from what I could catch with the art direction, there was a lot of really good stuff going on within the art direction and the cinematography that I found to be really effective. So as a whole, I would recommend this movie to, you know, people that are into horror, depending on if you can handle you know, what level of graphic content you can handle. Because I know people that are, some people are more sensitive to like, you know, blood and gore and body parts, and other people are not. So. But yeah, I really did find that movie very interesting. And the more that I've sat with it, the more that I've gained an appreciation for the movie.

Alex Howard  
I definitely agree. And I think it's funny because I was like, I thought I love description with gore. And I do. But then I saw Saw X last night, and I was like, I think I'm getting too old for this. Because I almost left, it was, it was too much. And then it's funny because you know, you have the description. And naturally, you want to turn away from the screen. But then when you turn away, you're still hearing gore described. So it doesn't really help very much. But yeah, it was, I think I'm too old for the... I can't do the Saw movies, but I can do Birth/Rebirth, it was great.

Lee Pugsley  
To comment on what you were saying, Alex, I like I feel like I'm able to take gore, if it's justified within the story. Meaning there's some movies where it's just like gore for the sake of there being gore and blood and body parts, like you know, thrown all around. But for Birth/Rebirth, for example, I felt like there was a reason that they were showing the things they were showing in the film, and it was justified within the context of the story.

Alex Howard  
I definitely agree. Yeah, I Saw is more gore for gore's sake. Yeah. But Birth/Rebirth had like a purpose behind it for sure. Rein, how did you get into writing audio description? I know it's kind of a niche thing to do. So what was your path to get there?

Rein Brooks  
So before this? Well, I had a horrible pandemic job, which was in the tech industry. But before that, I was a medical translator, because I wanted to be a literary translator. So I was actually a medical interpreters, is what you call that. So Birth/Rebirth was interesting for me, because I worked at a clinic where people were getting reproductive stuff happening. And I was around a lot of distressed women who didn't speak English. And I was like, this is interesting, but it's also horrific, and stressful. And the medical industry is horrific and stressful. So I was doing it because I wanted to have interpretation experience, but it was not what I was passionate about. I did like feeling like I was doing a good thing. Before that, I was like I want to do poetry. I want to translate poetry from French into English. And there's not that many people who are not PhDs and professors who make a living doing that. So I was sort of struggling to figure out how that was going to happen. And at the same time, I was doing a lot of local film stuff in the midwest. I moved to Chicago in 2019. And I started doing some script consultation, just like sort of talking people through what they want the visual elements of their movie to look like. And then from there I went into art direction and making props and stuff like that. The visual parts of filmmaking, which is what I'm the most interested in. And during this entire time, my mom's sister, who I'm pretty close to, was losing her sight. She has been going blind for like 30 years. And she became totally blind in March. So we've been intermittently having these media conversations because we like movies, we like TV, and we like visual stuff. And so we were sort of talking about that for my entire life, basically, like what her experience has been. And I'm, you know, sort of peripherally involved in film here, but not in a way where I can make it my full time job. And around the time, probably about a year ago, almost, we had this conversation about one of my favorite Netflix shows, which I think IDC may have described, called The OA, which is a science fiction show. And she and I were talking about it, because her wife really likes science fiction, and so do I. And it's sort of one of those cosmic science fiction shows that has a lot of like, dream sequency type of stuff in it. Like it's very visually compelling, as well as being a cool story. We were talking about it. And I asked her, "Did you watch this? Or did you have it described, like, on Netflix?" And she was like, "I don't remember whether I needed description when this came out." Because it came out in I think, 2017 or 2018. So she was still sort of like, on the fence about whether description was necessary for every single thing she was watching. And she was like, "I don't remember." And we had all these conversations about the effects, about how they did the dream sequences, about like, there's some great scenes that are just like super trippy and visually interesting. And then at the end of the conversation, she was like, "I don't remember if I saw this with my eyes, or if somebody described it to me." And I was like, "Okay, so it sounds like somebody translated this for you so well that like, we can have a really normal conversation about how the visual parts of this are working." And I thought that was super interesting. So it got me really interested in the concept of being a translator, but from visual to verbal translation, instead of, you know, from French to English. And then I applied for a scholarship that she told me about, because she's in like a blind leaders thing. She's a therapist, but she's got lots of blind friends that do cool things. And she found out that this, I think it's a ACB affiliated seminar, gives away scholarship every year, and so I applied for it. And they gave it to me. And I went to the thing for a week. And I was like, "Yes, I definitely like this." And I also found out that the industry is not very old. And so a lot of the like pioneers are still kind of in the game. And they're like my dad's age, I was like, "Hmm!"

Alex Howard  
You're talking about the audio description industry, right?

Rein Brooks  
Mmhm. And I sort of realized that guys my dad's age like cold emails from enterprising guys that have very intense interests. And that's me. So I cold emailed a bunch of legal people, from smaller companies and companies that I knew had some blind employees. And that's how I got involved with Audio Eyes. Luckily, they started giving me really challenging projects really early on, I think, because of the way the strike has affected the workflow. And that's, that's the net. I don't know, my first project was in June. So I've been going for about four months. 

Lee Pugsley  
That's a really cool journey. And it's just cool to see too, how kind of the things you were doing before in some ways, you know, just kind of seemed like a natural transition, that you could still use those skills in the audio description industry as well.

Rein Brooks  
It really feels like a synthesis of all the things that I love, you know, visual stuff, vocabulary stuff, translation, and I mean, vibes. That's so much of what I talk to filmmakers about when they bring me their scripts, when we talk about how they want it to look. It's like, "What kind of what kind of atmosphere are you creating?" So I feel really lucky that I found it and then I've been able to figure out how to how to do it, because it hasn't been super easy to get into. Like nobody posts jobs for staff writers for this stuff anywhere.

Lee Pugsley  
Speaking of the question, "What kind of atmosphere do you want to create?" That brings up a question for me about the horror genre, specifically as it pertains to audio description, because so much of horror is about creating an atmosphere, creating that tension, and creating a level of suspense and intrigue. So as you have explored the horror genre from an audio description point of view, do you think that there's any challenges or considerations that are specific to the horror genre as compared to like, you know, you're doing a dialogue heavy Aaron Sorkin drama or a Ben Stiller comedy?

Rein Brooks  
Yes. So horror, I think more than, maybe as much as really good movies in other genres. But even a pretty mid horror movie will have often a dramatic shift in atmosphere at some point. And I like to try to make sure that I'm capturing that in a way that is not over the top. I feel like lighting and darkness and what you are able to see or not see, it plays a huge part in many movies, but I think particularly in horror. Like I feel like the unknown is sort of the basest part of the scary movie, is like the thing. Either you're working with dread, where like, you're scared from the beginning. You know, you're in the car with Jack Nicholson and he's like, (imitating Nicholson) "It's okay, Wendy, he saw it on the television." And you're like, "That guy's gonna kill his family." And the movie's about dread and extending that feeling. Or it's a movie that runs on shock, like the thing where you're like, you're down there, and you have no clue what's going to happen. But there's all kinds of dark corners. And there's all kinds of things being revealed to you. And I think with description, you have to make sure that you're timing things correctly to make sure that either the suspense or the shock is getting sort of metered out correctly. Like, I would like you to be able to sit next to a sighted person, have headphones, watch the movie with them and have a very similar experience and gasp at the same times. And... Because the timing and the reveal of things is kind of what horror is about, in a lot of ways. And description has this limitation where when things are happening, and there's also sound happening, and the sound is important, like, I have to decide when to put the description. And so I feel really strongly that, that like, describing horror has some particular challenges because of those, those times when like you are supposed to feel scared. There's like moments that are, that are sort of crucial in horror movies that don't happen as much as in, in other movies.

Lee Pugsley  
That's so true. I'm thinking about it more now about the sound elements of horror movies. Because you know, as we all know, when there's audio description, usually that happens during the times where there's no dialogue, but in horror movies, if you have a score that's building suspense, or you just need it to be silent, so that suspense intention can be built. Yeah, it would be very hard to know, "Do I say something here? Or do I just let the moment sit as it is?"

Rein Brooks  
What is scarier? More detail, or silence, leading up to something? That was something that, Liz gave me some really great feedback, Liz Gutman at IDC gave me some really great feedback about my, my intro to the Walking Dead. So the sheriff guy wandering through that, like, place where people were camping in their cars, and finding the zombie. And that was her biggest, like, most overarching criticism, is like, you need to leave more time for there to be anxiety. And silence will do that. And you, if you listen to it without description, there's a hell of a lot of silence in the first five minutes, it's almost exclusively silenced. And so trying to leave some of that sort of sound/story integrity is really, really crucial, because it is very easy for me, as somebody who likes to use words, and likes to make sure everybody knows what's happening visually, to get caught up in that and not respect the score or the silence.

Alex Howard  
Yeah, I think A Quiet Place is a good example that for sure, like with audio description. Because A Quiet Place is all tension. It's all silence. And the silence is important too. And I think that goes along with any horror movie. But yeah, if anyone is interested in really feeling what that's like, watch A Quiet Place with audio description. And I actually did watch Birth/Rebirth with two of my sighted friends with the description. And it's funny because like, when I'm watching in my living room, like you were saying, the only time I have headphones on is if I'm in the theater. So in my living room, I prefer to watch with friends. And I don't want to have headphones on because I like to talk to them at the same time. And so having the description in a way where it not only gives me the same experience, but it doesn't ruin things for them, like go to too soon or something like that, is really important. I don't remember anything in Birth/Rebirth that got ruined. I know, they both really loved the movie, like I did. But I know there were parts where with like, there are kind of gross parts with the pig and things like that, where I was like, "Ooh, that sounds really gross." And I went back and I had my friend go up to the TV and point out what you were describing on the screen and things. So it was it was really, really great.

Rein Brooks  
Somebody told me recently that when they were at Sundance, somebody fainted in Birth/Rebirth. Do you think your experience of being grossed out by things and movies -- and I assume you have a pretty high tolerance -- but do you think, especially in my particular description of it, do you feel like your experience of being grossed out and your friends experience of being grossed out were similar or different? Was it grosser to hear it in words? Or do you think it was grosser for them to look at it? I guess they also heard it in words. So it's tricky, but how do you think it changed it?

Alex Howard  
I think it was pretty similar. I would have to ask them, but maybe it was a -- I think it was pretty similar for us. I mean, yeah, my tolerance is pretty high. But like I said, like Saw X I kind of felt a little nauseous just during that movie, but I do think there were some times in your description where I was like, "Damn, he's really getting into the gore and I love it," you know. But I mean, that's, I mean, if you're blind and you're watching this kind of movie, you know what you're getting. Like, we want the gore if we're watching Birth/Rebirth, or Saw or something like that. So I would rather the describer give us as much of an experience as the sighted person is getting, than tone it back because "Oh, it might be too gross." Well, people who are watching Saw want gross, so yeah.

Rein Brooks  
Yeah. Exactly. I got to keep my audience in mind always. Which is hard because I love horro, and neither of the people that I work with, who are blind and QC my scripts, are that interested in horror. And one of them is really grossed out by needles. So I've definitely been in meetings and been like, "Okay, are you guys good? Do we need a particularly ghoulish blind QC person to come in and tell me whether this is good?" Because, yeah, horror is such a particular thing. Like there's not a lot of people who are like, "Oh, I just don't like any drama." But there's definitely a lot of people who are like, "I would not watch a horror movie."

Lee Pugsley  
The thing that's interesting about gore and graphic description of blood, gore, or any other horror element like that, is for a blind or low vision user who may not be able to exactly see everything that's being described on screen, maybe you can see a little bit of it if you have partial vision, there's so much left to the imagination in that moment. And once again, drawing upon you know, like my acting experience, or whatever it's like, your imagination can run wild. And it can create more graphic scenarios or more vivid imagery in your imagination, than what might actually be there. And I think that's a really interesting thing about audio description in horror movies is that sometimes your brain can take it farther than how it actually appears on screen. For me, personally, I have a very high tolerance for all of that stuff. So I am good with it. And I agree with you, Alex, that the more description you can give me, within reason, I like it. Like I want to know all those gory details, because if I'm not able to see them, part of the enjoyment of a horror movie is knowing like, how gory or how, you know, like intense the atmosphere is getting, and these situations are getting. So I'm one of those people that I probably lean on, "Give me more detail, as opposed to less detail" when it comes to horror or anything else.

Alex Howard  
Yeah. And I think it's interesting what you're just saying, Lee, because filmmakers use that too. Like, especially smaller horror movies, like the first Saw movie is probably my top 25 movies of all time. And a lot of that is "Oh, we don't have the budget. So we're gonna, this guy has a saw to his ankle, and we're gonna show him moving his wrist back and forth and show him yelling, but you're gonna imagine what that looks like." So a lot of independent horror movies rely on the person's imagination to fill in the gaps and make it more gross than it actually is. So it's interesting that even with audio description, you pointed out blind people use that too.

Lee Pugsley  
In regards to that, Alex, I'm curious to know, when you watch Skinamarink, which I still haven't seen, if you had that experience, because everyone says it's about what isn't being seen, that's what makes it scary. Did you have that experience of just letting things go to your imagination in a way that created more suspense or fear factor, uh, because you weren't seeing it? Or there wasn't actually anything even being shown on screen? 

Alex Howard  
For me, I wasn't a huge fan of Skinamarink. I definitely, I mean, I had all the lights off, and I had to turn a light on. So it gave the creepy factor, but it wasn't really setting up anything scary. It was kind of like just showing corners of the room and like, "Oh, something might be here" and you're like, "Okay, but like, is there something there?" You know, it's not like you know something horrific is actually happening off screen. So I think for me, Skinamarink wasn't that great, but I'm also not into experimental horror that much. What about you Rein? What did you think of all of that? And I know, what was your take on the filmmakers using imagination in audio description?

Rein Brooks  
I need to watch it with description. I've been waiting for, I don't have whatever streaming services on. So I'm waiting for my boss to get me a copy with description so I can watch it. I saw it without description. This is kind of a niche take, but I like a very wide variety of horror. I enjoy your sort of trashy or slashy movies, your I Know What You Did Last Summers and your Nightmares on Elm Street. But I also like movies that I that scare me so much, I never want to watch them again. And Skinamarink is kind of one of those where like, I felt the same way that I felt about, I think Hereditary is one that I would say, or We Need to Talk About Kevin. Movies where like, if you take away all of the trappings, the thing the movie is trying to say is just something that is true and very scary. And I felt like the thing that Skinamarink was telling me is that my consciousness lives in an eight pound ball of jelly in my head that is completely fallible and like can create all kinds of horrible things, just if something goes physically wrong with it. Like it's a movie about how fragile your brain is, I think. And I was very, very scared. And having like, so little visible but such a strong atmosphere of like, anxiety and dread. Also, like exploiting sort of, like cultural things that made sense to me. So like, I didn't grow up in a house that looked like that. But like, I have been in many houses that look like that as a small child. Having having that sort of familiar stuff get presented to me in such a unsettling, unexpected way, it really worked for me. I may not ever watch it again because it scared me so much. But I think I would like to watch it with description because I'm very curious how that all worked. You know, so much doorframe and foot and like, you know movie looks like somebody scattered camcorders around the house and then just had them all filming at once. And it worked really well for me because that's the kind of movie that really really scares me. But I'm really curious how the description works, because there was a real effect in that movie, like the camcorder effect where like, there was that sort of crawling static all over everything, which like, it always made me want to look for something in the dark parts of the screen. Like, I was always like, "Wait, is that something moving? Or is that just like the effect of the poor quality or the poor quality filter that they put on the film?" I'm very, very interested in seeing how the description handled that. Do you remember if they talked about the film grain or digital woodgrain? Whatever that's called?

Alex Howard  
What's interesting is the description can only say what's for sure there. 

Rein Brooks  
Yeah. 

Alex Howard  
So like, I had to rely on it to be like, I was like, "Is there something there?" And if they didn't say anything, I'd be like, "Okay, there isn't." But I know I've heard from other people have seen it. Yeah. Like, they're looking for things. And whenever -- and I guess I'm listening for things. But the audio description is telling me what's actually there. So I can....

Rein Brooks  
That's a very hard thing. 

Alex Howard  
Yeah.

Rein Brooks  
Because like, when it's a movie that is so uncertain, like, I feel like I almost want the audio description to be... I would want to write it as sort of an unreliable narrator. Like, there might be something there. I can't tell because I couldn't tell watching it. What parts of the darkness were actually supposed to look like they were moving? It seems like kind of an impossible task. 

Alex Howard  
Yeah. 

Rein Brooks  
As a description writer. At first, I was like, "Aw, man." I started at Audio Eyes like right after they made this. I've totally wished they'd given this to me as my first project. Now I'm thinking like, "Maybe not, maybe it would have driven me absolutely bonkers."

Alex Howard  
No, I'd be really curious to hear your thoughts after you watch it. What are some of the cornerstone horror movies that shaped your love for the genre? Basically, what are some of your favorite horror movies?

Rein Brooks  
Oh, it's so tricky. I would say the OG, the first horror movie where I was like, "This is my stuff," was either the Shining or A Tale of Two Sisters, which is a Korean movie from the late '90s. They both sort of exploit like family dynamics and tension. They both have very beautiful interiors in them, like a very nice use of architecture, to sort of build the dread. And they're both sort of on the psychological side of horror. But then, sort of a little bit later, you know, I saw Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween and got sort of interested in the stuff that I think of as more sort of fun horror. And lately, it's been a mix of the two. I've been watching stuff that I consider more of a goofy or good time, and stuff that really disturbs me and that I think is really beautiful. Like, some of my other ones, I guess Pearl is one of my favorite horror movies. I thought that the cinematography in that movie, just like the -- it seems like a random mashup, right? To like, have it be filmed like Gone With the Wind, but it takes place in 1911 or wait no, 1917. Sorry. Having that like sort of 1940s Technicolor style was just unexpectedly chilling for me when it was paired with all of that graphic violence and like dark dynamics, dark interpersonal dynamics. I definitely like an unexpected horror movie that makes me go, "How did you think of that?" And a movie that feels really personal to a filmmaker. What about you, Lee?

Lee Pugsley  
I would say how I got started, I think, into horror was kind of the gateway, it was like through more suspense thrillers. So when I think of movies that -- because horror is such a wide gambit of things like you were saying, it's like the slasher thrillers the campy horror, the psychological thriller, the straight up like just gore horror, um, the supernatural, like, you know, horror movies. There's so many different like subcategories of horror. But the ones that came to mind as soon as you asked that, Alex, were the first few M Night Shyamalan movies up to The Village. So like, The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs, and The Village. I think that in all of those movies, there's a lot of really beautiful things to appreciate about the way that tension is built, and the way that suspense is drawn out of those different scenarios that are in those films. My favorite one of those is The Sixth Sense. I think that movie is masterfully done on so many levels. And I think it's very effective in what it tries to do. And it also has a very personal touch to it. Other movies that come to mind are any of the Screams or I Know What You Did Last Summer movies, I just think that they're a lot of fun. More recently, Bodies Bodies Bodies. First Paranormal Activity and the Blair Witch Project. I really appreciated just the raw simplicity of both of those movies, which also proved to be very effective as well. So those are some of them that come to mind. 

Rein Brooks  
I'm curious about Paranormal Activity and the Blair Witch Project. Do those have description anywhere? Those are movies, I think, that are very much about the unknown, and how much that drives attention to the movie.

Lee Pugsley  
I don't know actually. So when I watched both of those movies, my vision was better and I was able to see the gist of everything going on, way more than I'm able to now. So I haven't ever watched either of them with audio description. Um, Alex, have you watched either of those movies with audio description?

Alex Howard  
I do you really like Blair Witch Project. That's one of the movies that I was watching in my bedroom at my parents house and I had to turn the light on. I have never been lost, but it gave me the sense that like I was lost in the woods. It was crazy. 

Rein Brooks  
Lost in the woods simulator, big time. I mean, yeah, that movie, is, it does so much with so little. And it, I don't know if I support the entire genre that it sparked. But there's a reason that it sort of kind of ushered in all of that found footage stuff. It is really well put together, well structured, well timed. And this is something that hopefully when you guys see The Royal Hotel we can discuss a little bit, especially when it comes to description. It has that like sort of interpersonal suspicion that sort of builds and then breaks and builds and then breaks, where like you don't know who to feel suspicious of. And you've got characters who are just feeling sort of like, they don't know who to trust, and you're kind of being gas lit by the movie about that. That's one of my favorite sort of horror tools.

Alex Howard  
Oh, definitely. So Blair Witch Project does not have description anywhere. Paranormal Activity has it on Google Play. But that's it. 

Rein Brooks  
Hm. Man.

Alex Howard  
Um yeah, for me, I think, I mean, I always say my favorite horror movie of all time is Halloween. The first one.

Rein Brooks  
It's an incredible movie. 

Alex Howard  
Yeah, all the atmosphere in that. My favorite post-2000 horror movie is It Follows which I think is a very similar tone to Halloween. And then -- which has description, it's on Netflix right now, I think. And then my favorite series, where almost every movie I love, is Nightmare on Elm Street. It's just so much fun. I just, I liked that each, it's not a rehash of the same thing. I feel like Friday 13th is very like, the same thing over and over. And at least Nightmare on Elm Street like yeah, he's, it's kind of the same. It's you know, it's different, has to do with dreams. It's kind of, it's more intellectual, I think, than Friday the 13th is. And that one actually, I've watched Dream Warriors probably three or four times in the last two years because I actually just watched those movies in 2020 for the first time. Dream Warriors and Dream Child, I think, has audio description on Amazon. 

Rein Brooks  
Oh, shoot, I've only seen the first two. Because my feelings about franchises, is like if I like the second one then I'm pushing my luck. You know, like, I haven't seen sequels for most of these. But I heard really good things about Nightmare on Elm Street 2, so I watched the second one. I should keep going? I should watch all of them?

Alex Howard  
Yeah, three is the best one, I think.

Rein Brooks  
Really! Okay. All right. Because I like 2 a lot. I thought it was a lot of fun. I think Freddy Krueger has a, he has a longevity because of the trippy elements of the dream stuff. Like you can really go crazy, there's so much room for innovation that I don't really see in your Friday the 13th and even in like, I like some of the Exorcist sequels. I've seen the third one, I liked that. But like, even Halloween, like the first one is just such a perfect gem that like, why keep going, you know? I didn't feel like they left anything that I needed to know more about. Yeah, sequels and franchises are trickier.

Alex Howard  
Especially like the mystery of it. Like with Talk to Me, they're doing a sequel and we were, my friends and I were saying, without giving spoilers, like, "The origin of the hand, like, we don't want to know."

Rein Brooks  
Don't tell us the origin of the hand! Paranormal Activity did that, where it was like, "Oh, that's why it's so --" "No, no, don't tell me. I don't want to know. I was scared because I don't know. Don't make me not scared anymore. What's the point of that?"

Alex Howard  
That's why the Halloween sequels don't really work. Because yeah, in the second Halloween they're like, "Oh, he's Laurie Strode's brother." I'm like, "We didn't need that. I just liked it better when he was just some guy." Made it more scary that way.

Rein Brooks  
Completely. Especially the way that the, Halloween is about, like, suburbia being shattered by like a completely senseless bizarre event. And then having there being like, a motivation that makes sense. And like I don't know. It, it doesn't maintain the magic for me. But Nightmare on Elm Street. He's a, he's a nutty dream guy. Like there's not a huge mystery for me to figure out. They're, they're not giving me too much information, at least not in the second one.

Alex Howard  
Yeah, and I think a lot of the classic horror movies, like the classic monster movies and things, those don't have description, a lot of them. So I'm, I actually am trying to get my dad to watch them with me, to describe. But hopefully someday we can get some of the cornerstones of horror described so low vision and blind people can love the genre like we do. Especially, I mean, Blair Witch Project isn't described. There's a lot of classic horror that just doesn't have description at all. So.

Lee Pugsley  
Alfred Hitchcock movies, we totally forgot to touch on those. I mean, that's, you know, some of the best earlier horror movies. And Alex, they have description now, right? Or some of them do?

Alex Howard  
Some of them do, some of them don't. Yeah, it just depends. And some of them do, but there just not available right now. You know, it all depends on, where is it streaming, do they have the track? But yeah, something like, I mean, Rope. I know Lee and I both love Rope and Psycho. And it's just like, "Ahh!" Like, I love these movies so much. And I saw them when my eyesight was better. And I would love to like watch them again with description so I can experience it again. But also like help blind and low vision people really love these movies. You know, like we do. 

Rein Brooks  
Do you have like a holy grail of movies that's not available that you want to have description because you know how good it is and how much it needs it?

Alex Howard  
I mean, You're Next is a big one for me. 

Rein Brooks  
That's a fun movie. And it's like, it's pretty much dark the whole time. Right? Like they're in that spooky mansion in the woods, right?

Alex Howard  
Yeah. It's not much dialogue. It's mostly just home invasion, running away from slaughtering people, but it doesn't have description anywhere. And it's a recent one too. I'm surprised.

Rein Brooks  
So I just did my first movie that is not new. And I'm not supposed to talk about it. But every movie I've worked on until this one has been a movie coming out in 2023, or 2024. And I think what's happening, and I can't say for sure, but I -- no one's explained this to me, but I think this movie is going to a new streaming site. And the distributor that's taking it to this -- I don't understand how this labyrinth of film distribution works -- but like, I think that's what's going on that like has something to do with moving to a new streaming platform. But it's like a five year old movie. And so it's kind of giving me hope that like, eventually, I will be able to do some of those older movies, because... Mine is Alien. I am desperate to write the description for Alien because I love practical effects so much. And that's a movie that has a million beautiful practical effects that are shown in the worst light. Like it's so dark in that entire movie. It's just like, it's beautiful. I love how it works. It's very mysterious, but like, on its face it's one of the most inaccessible movies ever, because there's very little dialogue and very little light.

Alex Howard  
Oh, I definitely agree with that. I like Alien. I think I would love it if there was description, because I don't think I've ever gotten the full impact of that movie. I love Aliens. That's one of my favorites. But yeah, I, getting description for Alien, getting description for so many classic horror movies.

Rein Brooks  
I put You're Next -- I have a little list. Because one of my bosses and I have been talking about the possibility of crowdfunding some of these, because it seems just like a massive sadness, that some of them are like, nobody can can watch them because they don't have description anywhere. So I'm going to add You're Next to my list.

Alex Howard  
Yeah. And real quick, Lee, I'll turn it over to you to ask any last questions. But yeah, I had a, I started a company with a friend in 2020, we were going to be describing horror movies that were in the public domain. And we had volunteers setup, we were going to do I think it was like 50 movies, we had volunteers for writing, narrating and QC for all of them. And we were literally about to start the process. And then we discovered that "Oh, we would have to pay taxes on the company." And we didn't have the money to do that. So it's like, we would essentially just fold after that year. And so we we had to give up. We couldn't do it. But we are really trying to figure out how to get description on these movies. Because I think, yeah, there are classic drama, and you know, Gone With the Wind and things like that too. But especially with horror, it's just spanned so many decades, and there's so many hidden gems in it. I think it's really important to get description on these older movies. 

Lee Pugsley  
And horror movies are so essential, I think, to have audio description for blind and low vision users to fully get the effect of everything. Because so much of it does rely on visuals. And if you're not able to take those in visually, you need some guidance there.

Rein Brooks  
Yeah, so many really great classic movies are so dialogue driven that like, it's good to know what the visual elements are. But like, I feel pretty confident that I could, like, watch Goodfellas with my eyes closed and be like, "Yeah, that was a good movie." Because there's so much talking and like, you know, people's voices sound different and like... But horror, there's so much of a, like a marriage of visual and sound. And also maybe it's just because I love it. But I do feel like it's, it's something that benefits, especially, from that kind of accessibility

Alex Howard  
Lee, do you have any last questions for Rein?

Lee Pugsley  
I think all of my questions have been answered. I mean, you know, we could all talk for hours about audio description, about the craft of audio description in horror movies, and so on and so forth. But for now, I think that I feel very satisfied. One last thing I will mention, though, in terms of older horror movies that I would love to see with audio description, is this movie from the late '90s, which actually was very scarey to me at the time, called What Lies Beneath. It's with like Michelle Pfeiffer and Harrison Ford. And I think it's one of the only movies where Harrison Ford actually plays a straight up like bad guy villain. But it's also very, there's a lot of horror moments in it, and it's very suspenseful. And I remember being very scared after it.

Rein Brooks  
This looks so good. I've never heard of this movie. 

Lee Pugsley  
It's great. You should definitely check it out. 

Rein Brooks  
It's like a demonic possession movie?

Lee Pugsley  
Yeah, yeah. 

Rein Brooks  
All right.

Alex Howard  
And then another one for me is The Descent. Everyone loves that movie. And I don't -- oh wait. Does it have it? The Dscent does have it! Oh my gosh, it's on Prime Video.

Rein Brooks  
Is that the one of the other ladies go in the cave? 

Alex Howard  
Yeah, 

yep. 

Rein Brooks  
Oh, man, I did The Dive. That was my second movie. And I don't have a lot of like, intense fears of things, but caves and the deep sea. And like sort of the idea of there being pressure all around you. [Squeals] Ooh! It makes me very very nervous. And I had so much fun describing that movie because I was like so disturbed by the content. Like that atmosphere of there being matter all around you that is like confining you. It's such a unique kind of horror and I haven't seen The Descent but I have seen As Above, So Below which is another underground or movie. I really gotta check out The Descent. It does have description. I should watch it with description and find out if it's good.

Alex Howard  
Yeah, I need to rewatch it with description because it's so dark. 

Rein Brooks  
Yeah, 

Alex Howard  
It's on everyone's list of the best horror movies ever. And I was like, [doubtfully] "Is it?" But I think it's because of my eyesight. So yeah, I would love to revisit that too. Um, Rein, do you have any thing you want to plug or any anything you want to shout out before we wrap up?

Rein Brooks  
Hmm, well, the three scary movies I've done that are out and I'm allowed to talk about are Birth/Rebirth, The Dive and The Royal Hotel. Royal Hotel is in theaters right now. And I really like getting feedback from people about my description. I'm still very new. And I'm learning so much so quickly. So if anybody wants to look me up after they've seen that, I would love to talk about it. I just, I'm very happy that I was able to come on here and talk with you guys. I had a lovely time. This is so interesting. And I'm just learning so much from talking to you guys.

Alex Howard  
We had a lot of fun too. And for everyone. The Dive is available to rent on iTunes and Prime Video with audio description. And same with Birth/Rebirth, which I really, really loved. So I highly recommend you guys check that out. It is available on iTunes and Prime Video also with audio description.

Lee Pugsley  
And if you have any questions for us, or questions that we can pass on to Rein, feel free to email us at DarkRoomFilmCast@gmail.com. Once again, that's DarkRoomFilmCast@gmail.com. And you can also just send us your horror movie rankings or your favorite horror movies, because maybe there's some of them that we haven't seen that will be inspired to check out. And maybe there's some of them that don't have audio description that we can work on getting audio description set up for those.

Alex Howard  
Yeah, you can also follow us on Instagram @DarkRoomFilmCast. Also, I wanted to plug something real quick before we sign off. If anyone is in LA and is legally blind, at the Braille Institute Los Angeles, my friend Tess is starting a young adult support group for low vision and blind people, just to help navigate the adult life with being blind. So it's for people 18 to 40. So if you're interested in that, the first meeting will be on November 2nd, which is a Thursday, at one o'clock. So check out the Braille Institute Los Angeles for more details. I will definitely be there and I think Lee is going to try and be there too.

Lee Pugsley  
Yeah. Give a try. Hopefully everything works out. And we want to also shout out Matt Lauterbach and All Senses Go for continuing to provide transcripts of all our podcast episodes, including this one.

Rein Brooks  
You guys know Matt? I know Matt.

Alex Howard  
Oh, yeah, I think he's -- 

Rein Brooks  
That Matt.

Alex Howard  
Yeah.

Rein Brooks  
Yeah. We, he let me sit it on his, his like final projects when he did description in his class at, I think DePaul. He's great. Big fan of Matt.

Alex Howard  
Yeah, we love Matt.

Lee Pugsley  
We do love Matt. For sure. Well, everyone, thank you so much for listening today, and happy Halloween. And we'll see you next time here on The Dark Room. 

Rein Brooks  
Thanks a lot guys. 

Alex Howard  
Thank you

Transcribed by https://otter.ai