Haunted Ozark Theater
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Haunted Ozark Theater
Episode 29 - Cryptids
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Welcome to Haunted Ozark Theater … H-O-T … your “hot” horror podcast! This week we dive into the weird and wonderful world of cryptids. Have you ever seen one? Look out, there's one behind you!
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Graphics by Jacob Hedges
© Haunted Ozark Theater 2026
Welcome to Haunted Ozark Theater. H O T, your Hot Horror Podcast. And today, as promised, we're going to talk about cryptids. Cryptids. So not necessarily about horror film, but a horror-adjacent subject. And I think a lot of people who are into the scary flicks are into cryptids, at least in my experience.
SPEAKER_02You think it's more of a southern thing or nationwide?
SPEAKER_01Um, no, I think it's pretty much nationwide. Having you know, grown up on the West Coast and the Yeti. Doing all the research that we did this week. Um I just think it's a human thing. It's not even necessarily an American thing. It's it's a you know, it goes back to Europe.
SPEAKER_02It goes back to log in on the log ness monster.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, big time.
SPEAKER_02Nessie.
SPEAKER_01But first, of course, we gotta do this day in history. In horror history. And it's a good one. It's a good one.
SPEAKER_02What is it?
SPEAKER_01What do you got? Today is the day that we celebrate the passing of Ray Harryhausen. No? You're coming up blank?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Ray Harryhausen is like the special effects guy. Like in old Hollywood. Like he's Jason and the Argonauts. Oh, really? Yeah, Clash of the Titans, and dude.
SPEAKER_02That's crazy. I had one of my all-time favorite coke classics came out today, 1981, The Burning.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And that's Tom Savini's baby.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So they probably fit right together then, don't they?
SPEAKER_01So say this guy's name again. Ray Harryhausen. Ray Harryhausen. Yeah. And he's just a special effects wizard. Well, basically, like stop motion specifically. Okay. But he is like the guy that did everything in like the 50s, 60s, 70s. No, I've never heard the name. Okay. Okay. Have you seen the movie Monsters Inc.?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01Do you remember that? Do you remember that they go to the sushi restaurant? And the sushi restaurant is called Harryhausen's. Okay.
SPEAKER_02I didn't.
SPEAKER_01And that's it's a reference to him. It's a okay. A little not to leave. Because Monsters Inc., he was kind of like the monster guy. Okay. Back in the 50s, 60s, 70s. Um, just a couple of quick little things that I jotted down about Ray Harryhausen. Of course, we're talking practical effects. We're talking pre-computer. We're talking, you know, doing things the old-fashioned way so that it can be captured on like you said, stop motion.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And it actually started with this guy, Willis H. O'Brien. William H. O'Brien. Willis H. O'Brien. He's the guy who did the stop motion for King Kong. Original to 1933 King Kong. Ray Harryhausen saw this as a kid and said, This is what I want to do with my life. So when Ray Harryhausen um got the opportunity, he actually apprenticed himself to Willis O'Brien and learned everything that he could and then took it all to the next level.
SPEAKER_02And we've talked about this before in the show, how that influences, like I mean, he probably idolized that guy.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And look what we got from him.
SPEAKER_01Right. And then another guy came along and had a similar experience. He idolized Ray Harryhausen, and then he got the chance to learn everything he could from Ray Harryhausen. And that was Phil Tippett.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I thought you were saying that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and Phil Tippett not only was probably the last great stop-motion artist pre-computer graphics. Yeah. But then um actually took his skills and knowledge and applied them to computer graphics. And uh he was involved with Jurassic Park and stuff with the with the CGI.
SPEAKER_02I know that name.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So Ray Harryhausen, uh go watch the original Clash of the Titans tonight if you if you want to see Ray Harryhausen's work.
SPEAKER_02Like you said, Jason of the Argonauts.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Uh Seven Voyages of Simbad, all that stuff was was really. And and he just really um perfected those types of special effects in Hollywood. And um, you know, again, we love practical effects here on Haunted Ozark Theater.
SPEAKER_02They can make or break a movie.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely can. And this was back when you had no choice but to do it for real. Right.
SPEAKER_02You know. Well, speaking of that, real quick, I um a movie that doesn't have a lot of great practical effects, and that's a 1999 it came out today. The mummy. Oh, yeah. Came out, and then one I know that you love dearly came out in 2007, and that is 28 weeks later.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_02So yeah. Like I said, right before the burning.
SPEAKER_01There's a lot of yeah, a lot of good summertime. Yeah, so very cool. What'd you rewatch? Oh, um we're gonna talk about that real quick. Yeah, for sure. I re-watched a little torture porn movie called Hostel. Oh, I saw that in theater, dude. Yeah, hostile is so good. I forgot about hostile. So speaking of when it came out, speaking of seeing it in theater, yeah. I looked up some little facts today about Hostel, just because Eli Ron. I've seen it, obviously, multiple times, but I didn't know any uh little nuggets of info about it, so I looked a few little nuggets up. But seeing it in the theater, it opened the same weekend as uh Chronicles of Narnia, Lion the Witch and the Woods.
SPEAKER_02It probably got killed.
SPEAKER_01No, did it kill it? Did it crush? It was the number one movie that that weekend hostile beat Narnia sweet in its opening weekend. Okay, I know I wouldn't have thought that either.
SPEAKER_02Uh, you said you watched it there. I can't remember, I don't think I watched it opening weekend. I think it was the bus. Like, people are like, this is like a horror movie to get to, and I took a break.
SPEAKER_01I probably didn't see it open weekend either. I because I do remember hearing from friends who told me if you liked Saw, go watch Austin.
SPEAKER_02Go watch Hawks. Dude, that drill in the Achilles, or what he cuts them, and then he tells him you can get some walk away.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and he just it's the same victim. He first he drills them into the lake in the chest, too, right? I think that's how he kills them because he drills them in the chest. But at first, he's drilling them like right into the top of his thighs. Poor dude, yeah. And then yeah, he clips his Achilles with the unties again. And you can go if you that had some dark humor in it. Yeah, it did not just that line, but later on, uh the main guy, Jay Hernandez's character, they cut his fingers off, yeah, and then the torturer slips on his fingers.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that is some dark comedy. I'm in, but first time watching it, you're not like this is funny. No, looking back at this, so that's what you picked up your your rewatch. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I kind of I kind of was like, I laughed a couple times, but specifically when he slips on the on the fingers, yeah. I laughed, and I what does it say about me?
SPEAKER_02You're a sick of dude. So I would say this movie did for top gun getting pilots into the Navy. This probably kept people in America from traveling. Quite possibly, yeah, quite possibly. Uh, it's funny you mentioned Hustle because uh a couple weeks ago I was re-watching 2007's um uh The Texas Chainsaw Massacre at the beginning, and I was watching the special features, and they're like hostile that came out, and it really raised the bar. So we're like, we really had to push it. And Texas Chainsaw Massacre at the beginning does push that dude in. It's pretty graphic. So but they're like, we gotta compete, you know.
SPEAKER_01But hostile, yeah. Hostile was great. And since we just talked about Ray Harryhausen doing special effects, um, every single effect in Hostel is practical. There's not a licacy. Eli's big on that dude. He is, but as I was watching it this time, the other thing I picked up on is um, you know, there's a lot of long takes, and there's very few cuts, especially in these scenes where they're focusing on the torture. And I thought, one of the things they do when it's CGI is they do these quick cuts, and they don't have these long takes because it costs a lot of money to render a minutes long CGI kind of a thing, you know. So those are one of the shortcuts they take, is they just show you little glimpses.
SPEAKER_02So this one, like you said, it stays on it and it stays on the action, yeah. So you so that kind of have to sit with it.
SPEAKER_01You do. So that got me thinking, you know, and then I looked it up. Is there any CGI in this movie? No, there's no CGI, and it That's awesome, man. I like it even more now. Like you were saying, as as you as you have to sit with it, you have no choice but to sit with it and and watch it. How much more effective does that make the movie?
SPEAKER_02And I would I don't know, I don't understand. I've never made a movie, and I would love to get a director and pick their brains. Wouldn't it be uh somewhat cheaper than CGR? Or is CGI just that much cheaper when the computer animation now is at that point?
SPEAKER_01I think nowadays it's cheaper and certainly faster. I don't know about back then though, because it was still a relatively new thing.
SPEAKER_02I'd just like to think if I was directing any kind of movie, especially more, that's when we kind of want to direct, I would try to find any shortcut, any kind of like it. We talked about Night of the Living Dead and what they had to use something just to have uh special effects. And um the rewatch I watched, that you need to. Okay, it's the Redwood Massacre, and it's a a Scottish horror film, it's Beehored, but they they didn't have no money, and so they used the sausages, they had all the blood, but you it just man, it makes me love the movie even more. Yeah, they took no shortcuts when it came to that, and the all their budget went into the gore.
SPEAKER_01That's awesome.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you would love it, man.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I gotta watch it. It's on my list, I got to. So that was your big big rewatch?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I love so Redwood Massacre, directed by David Ryan Keith. Uh there's a sequel to called Annihilation. It's got Danielle Harrison, and it's really, really good. Yeah, the killer's just a big brute dude in this awesome mask, and it's just a throwback to Jason.
SPEAKER_01And it's right up your alley. Yeah, it really is.
SPEAKER_02I'm in love with those movies. Yeah, I would love to have that director on here one day. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_01That's awesome.
SPEAKER_02Were you ready to get into it, brother?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we're gonna talk about cryptids. I want to start with the king daddy of all cryptids. It's Bigfoot. Bigfoot, yeah, definitely. I looked, I went like kind of state by state and and saw, you know, what's their official cryptid. And Bigfoot is 15 of the 50 states they claim Bigfoot. Is Arkansas? Arkansas's one, yeah. Yes. So um just a couple of Bigfoot things real quick. He has been cited in 49 out of 50 states. The only state he has not been cited in is Hawaii. And here's the different names he goes by in different how many are there? Okay. Well, there's 15 different states that claim Bigfoot as their as their guy. Um the the entire west coast, California, Oregon, and Washington State, they call him Bigfoot.
SPEAKER_02Bigfoot, straight up Bigfoot.
SPEAKER_01Just call him straight up Bigfoot, and they all claim him. Um now here I'm in alphabetical order. Alabama, uh, their Bigfoot has white fur, and they call him the White Thang. You're messing with the thing. I'm not messing with you.
SPEAKER_02White thang. Oh, that's hilarious. With an A. Alabama.
SPEAKER_01Yep. Alaska calls him the hairy man. Okay. Arizona calls him the Mogalon monster. I think Mogolon is like a forest or a lake or something in that area. Of course, here in Arkansas, we have our own Bigfoot. We call him the Boggy Creek Monster. He's sometimes also called the Falk Monster because Falcon, Arkansas, is the closest town where he was sighted. Colorado claims him, they call him Sasquatch. Um Connecticut claims him, they call him Wild Man. Okay. Delaware claims him, they call him the Wood Booger. The Woodbooger, I've heard that. Yeah. Florida claims him, they call him the skunk ape.
SPEAKER_02Heard it, yep.
SPEAKER_01And let's just pause real quick. Bigfoot is always described as seven, eight, nine feet tall. Big dude. And he's always described as covered in fur, and he's always accompanied by a foul smell. Yeah. And so that's why Florida calls him the skunk ape, because of the smell. Uh Minnesota claims him, they call him the Windigo.
SPEAKER_02Oh, they do? Yeah. Windigo's totally different than a Bigfoot, though.
SPEAKER_01But that's what they that's associated with. Yeah, that's the name for him in Minnesota. Missouri claims him, and they call him Momo, which stands for Missouri Monster. Oh, cool. And Missouri's right on top of Arkansas. Um, I'm wondering if our Boggy Creek monster wanders up through the Ozarks. Takes a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of. North Carolina calls him Nobby. Nobby? Yeah. I have no idea. Um, and then let's see. One more. South Dakota. They call him Big Man. I like that. Big man.
SPEAKER_02Straight to the point. Straight to the big man. So I want to plug something really, really, really, really, really quick since we're talking about all this. Yeah. And I would love for you to listen to it too. It's a podcast I listen to on Spotify, and it's called The Sasquatch Chronicles. And it's got it's mainly Bigfoot stories from everyone around the country. Yeah. But they have the Windows. They have Chupacabra UFO stories. They actually have one I just listened to to a dude who went to Devil's Den, and he seen something, and it is creepy. Oh. So yeah.
SPEAKER_01That's cool. That's in our neck of the woods, Devil's Den. Uh, let's real quick let's define what a cryptid is. Good. Do you have any definition that you wrote out or anything like that? Well, here's just a couple quick little thoughts. Um, this is the like kind of textbook definition that I found. Animals who whose existence is disputed because the only evidence of their existence is anecdotal. Right. So uh no hard evidence on Bigfoot or any other cryptid, um, which puts them basically in the role realm of folklore.
SPEAKER_02Right. But would UFOs be cryptid? Uh we're not animal.
SPEAKER_01We're gonna get into that. Okay. We're gonna get into that because that is on the table.
SPEAKER_02Because one of my movies, okay.
SPEAKER_01That is on the table. So basically, we're talking about folklore because there's there it it's word of mouth passed down generation by generation through the generation. Um, and so that got me thinking, how far back can we go with this?
SPEAKER_02You know, well, I know there's a lot of tales about Native Americans.
SPEAKER_01A lot of American cryptids come from Native American superstitions, I'll call them. But um, I was thinking about um, you know, the Europeans who come here, who came to America and settled this place, and they must have brought, you know, some of their superstitions with them. And sure enough, uh there is a guy called Saint Columba, who was a missionary of Scotland. He first wrote about Loch Ness Monster in 565. 565? Yeah, 565. Not 1565, but 565. Wow. Is when is the first time that somebody wrote down the secret saw Loch Ness Monster. Yeah. But then that got me thinking, we can go back even further to uh like the Odyssey big movie coming out this summer, the Odyssey. Yeah, no longer. You know, we uh I had to read the Odyssey in high school. Um, you know, there's Sirens, which could also be called mermaids. There's uh Cyclops. Cyclops, definitely. There's the you know, Scylla and Charybdis, and all these creatures that people claim to have seen. So this is nothing new. Cryptids are have been around for thousands of years.
SPEAKER_02Well, I'd go back even further than that then, and I would say Beowulf. Yeah, uh what's his name? Um Sir Gawain. Um, yeah. The the monster, though.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah. Um Grindel? Grindle, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's like the first poem really written down, isn't it? I don't know.
SPEAKER_01I don't know if the Odyssey's older than that or not. But I mean, the point is it's been around. These stories go way back.
SPEAKER_02So does that kind of uh is it just like we talked about like somebody started this story a long, long time ago and it just went through every village, town, and I think that's a big part of it.
SPEAKER_01It it you know, they spread like wildfire. But I think one of the things that as I was kind of studying up, one of the things that I think these all have in common is it's people trying to scare each other.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01I mean, a lot of these stories, especially when they get here to America, a lot of the stories are um you spend the whole day logging or hunting out in the woods, then at the end of the day, you sit down around the fire with the other loggers, and you're waiting on your meal to get cooked, and you start telling these stories.
SPEAKER_02There's always that one guy who'll be like, Yeah, I've seen something.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. And the whole point is to try to scare your buddies, you're right. You know, so that's that was kind of funny.
SPEAKER_02But the scary one is always when is he telling the truth?
SPEAKER_01Well, and that's just it. Because anytime somebody says, Hey, I saw this weird thing out in the woods, and we all know that guy who's seen something weird out in the woods, somebody else is gonna back him up and say, I saw two. Yeah, and now you're off to the races. Well, yeah, okay. Oh, if two people are saying they saw it, yeah, you know, it must be true. I'm gonna go tell everybody that yeah, I saw it also, and then next thing you know, it's all over the place. It's a wildfire. So so let's I another thing is I I noticed um we can kind of divide all the cryptids into categories.
SPEAKER_02I did. Okay, I did. Okay, but so I'll go. I there's just one movie I want to start with before I get to my section because it has to be mentioned and everyone needs to watch it who's into cryptids. Okay, and I uh got the summary out right here. Okay, it's on Tubi. I found this movie doing my research, and I found in love. This is a movie that will be in my rotation until I'm dead.
SPEAKER_01So you just recently watched it for the first time.
SPEAKER_02And if you've seen it, uh if you haven't, you gotta watch it. It's uh cryptids, that's the name of 2017. It's a horror anthology film structured around a paranormal radio show, The Trucer, hosted by Major Harlan Dean, played by Joe Bob Riggs. No way, and it is amazing. Every different story is a different director of every cryptid.
SPEAKER_01That's so cool.
SPEAKER_02It's I love it, dude.
SPEAKER_01That's so cool.
SPEAKER_02You will absolutely love this movie. I'm gonna check it out. And you will, it will be one you have to watch two, three times a year.
SPEAKER_01I will definitely check it out.
SPEAKER_02Please do.
SPEAKER_01And that that's just um a little a whole other rabbit trail that we could go on that we're not gonna necessarily go on today, which is there's a ton of great horror movies out there that are based on cryptids. Oh, yeah, tons. Starting with our very own Arkansas Boggy Creek Monster, Legend of the Boggy Creek Monster. So, I mean, cryptids have inspired tons of uh good horror. Right.
SPEAKER_02So you've got you want to start with Bigfoot. I picked four, just about four in every category, and then like an honorable mention.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02So my own number mention for since it's not really horror would be Harry and the Henderson's. Oh, yeah. Just because I as a little kid, we watched it. I was never scared of it.
SPEAKER_01Everyone our age has seen Harry and the Henderson a dozen times at least.
SPEAKER_02So I just wanted to get that one out of the way and be like, and it was fun. It's a fun movie. It's a great movie. So that is such a great movie. Okay. Do you want to go first on your list of Bigfoot movies, or you want me to?
SPEAKER_01Oh, I don't really have any movies. I'm just talking about cryptids, period.
SPEAKER_02Oh, because I picked up movies that were okay. Okay, let's hear them. Uh the first one I'm gonna mention real quick, I got little side notes. We talked about it, and hopefully we get to go here with the the cast of Don Amantis and that is the legend of Boggy Creek. It's based on the Falk Monster legend. It feels eerie and it's very grounded.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. It's very grounded. It's a very well it was made in the 70s and everything in the 70s had that realism aspect and this movie does too.
SPEAKER_02It's the same director who did um the Town of the Dreaded Sundown. Correct.
SPEAKER_01And um so and in Falk where the monster has a has his name uh there's a monster Mart that you can visit. Well I guess which is a gift shop slash museum.
SPEAKER_02That's what I was going to say he pretty much um all the attention is to the Falk monster there right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah yeah that's their claim to fame in the in Falc for sure.
SPEAKER_02Second one I've got is Exist.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02It's a found footage style but way more aggressive and intense than most Bigfoot films. The creature is fast, violent very relentless.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02It's a very hardcore Bigfoot movie. Have you seen it? I have seen that one what'd you think about that one?
SPEAKER_01I thought it was great. Okay. Yeah I enjoyed it thoroughly.
SPEAKER_02Next one uh this one it might be my favorite and it's just it's a Blair Witch meets Bigfoot and that's Willow Creek. It's a slow burn release from uh Bobcat Gold Gold Goldthwaite Goldwaite featuring one of the most tense tense scenes ever into this kind of thing.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_02And the ending yeah and I know some people who believe in this kind of stuff. I don't want to give it away because I got some friends listening tonight who didn't want me to spoil certain movies because they wanted to watch it. Okay. But the ending it's it's really creepy.
SPEAKER_01Yeah yeah for sure.
SPEAKER_02And the last one I've got is probably my favorite looking Bigfoot out of all of them. I love the face for some reason and that's Primal Rage. It's more action heavy with a savage almost method mythological take on Sasquatch.
SPEAKER_01No I never watched that I thought that was based on that video game.
SPEAKER_02No reage there is one called Raids with the Rock. This is Primal Rage. And this one's got a lot of uh the Townsfolk are in on it and they're very hostile towards the people who come there too it's the look they want to like protect their town and protect you're gonna like it dude creature.
SPEAKER_01So yeah I would suggest those if you haven't seen any of those guys well that's that's a definitely its own category is is the Bigfoot category. Like I said there's 15 different states who claim Bigfoot. The next category that I noticed that we could lump things in is um water monsters basically you know we talked about the Loch nets America has a ton of different cryptids that are similar to loch nets okay no these are like monsters these are water monsters so Georgia Georgia has Alti. Alti is a river serpent uh Idaho has Charlie sorry sorry what Charlie Charlie yeah not Charlie no not Charlie Charlie got a little list there don't Charlie is a lake monster okay um like Loch Ness Kansas has sinkhole Sam a lake serpent okay uh Maryland has Chessy Chessie Chessie because it's out in the Chesapeake Bay okay a bay monster so not a lake monster a bay monster Nebraska has the alkali lake monster Nevada has Tessie I think I've heard of Tessie Lake Tahoe yes yeah and I've been out on Lake Tahoe anything I have not seen Tessie but uh yeah New York has champ which is a lake serpent Oklahoma has the Oklahoma octopus smoking that peyote out in Oklahoma he's been reported in three different lakes including Lake Tinkiller which is not far from here and okay yeah if you if you go to Lake Tinker you might see the Oklahoma octopus. And the last one is in Utah Isabella the lake monster what's that just like a like a a a messy kind of Arkansas don't got nothing we got some huge catfish I don't yeah we don't have any lake monsters okay but yeah that's the other big category there's nine different US states that claim uh a watered monster as their cryptid do you believe in any of that um well I definitely wanted to bring up the you know belief in cryptids slash we've never obtained hard evidence for cryptids why does it persist? Why do people continue to believe in it, search for it, swear by it?
SPEAKER_02Well I'm glad you said that because that Sasquatch Chronicles podcast there's probably over 1500 episodes oh wow and not everyone can be lying I wouldn't think and there are some people they got nothing to gain from this and some of them are like old ladies and just you can tell the sincerity what they saw was it was something different.
SPEAKER_01It wasn't a bear it wasn't a man in a costume and it's the skeptic in me says if he was out there we would have caught him by now that's the skeptic in me here's the optimist in me we're still finding new species at the bottom of the ocean yeah that thing yeah we know more about the moon than we do the ocean exactly and um you grew up in the woods I've spent a ton of time in the woods I work right now in the woods uh on any given day I'm out in the woods by myself on 500 acres of land you see Bigfoot out there one big dude I really do I have hiked I have hiked all over my work territory and every time I go out hiking I find a new grove or a new nook or a new creek that I've never seen before and so to think that to think that we have sussed out every hiding spot in America we haven't we just haven't you know I I want it to be real do I believe in it no do I want it to be real yeah absolutely I hear you I hear you I'm gonna ask you when was the first time you remember hearing about Bigfoot do you have a memory I don't know if I have memory of the very first time but I like I said I grew up on the West Coast and he is the cryptid for the three West Coast states and he was always you know a thing like especially when you went camping he was always was he a big deal with the stickers because you see Saskia okay oh yeah especially um there's near very near to where I grew up in California is a redwood forest oh I love it yeah um huge when you go into those like gift shops in the redwood forest it's all it's all bigfoot stuff in there see it's funny however I don't maybe I don't know what you call it I grew up in a town called St.
SPEAKER_02Paul and it's we lived in the woods dude and you would go okay you probably heard it from people that the first time I remember hearing about Bigfoot I was a little dude and that scared the crap out of me it was an episode of Unsolved Mystery.
SPEAKER_01Oh and it terrified me I probably heard it from it I probably heard about it from my dad. Okay. Because that's the kind of thing my dad obviously he shared that kind of stuff with me. Um but me and my dad went camping a lot as kids and I I do remember probably probably my earliest memory is seeing Bigfoot stuff in a gift shop in the Redwood forest but I already knew who he was probably because my dad had already either told me about Bigfoot or tried to scare me on a camping trip saying that Bigfoot was right as you do as a dad as a dad does yeah especially my dad so you don't you don't have any lake monster movies for me no lake monster movies just off the top of my head uh you know we got Lake Placid um big giant alligator movie right yeah I'm trying to think of more yeah actual like I remember there was a movie and I don't get me lying the name or nothing but it was a film about Lognes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah the water horse is maybe that was it yeah I remember and they really tried to find it yeah and it turns out to be really bad for him correct oh no the wal the water horse is more of a kid's movie like oh no this is a serious okay they do find him and he's he's friendly okay in the water horse this one isn't friendly okay I'm gonna switch gears to one with you which is a big deal let's do it and uh it's a movie but it's based on a true story okay and it's 1999 or 2000 I don't want to lie the Mothman prophecy I figured that's where you're going with that how do you feel about that because that was a big deal the bridge collapsing and a lot of people in that town before all these bad events swear they blame it on the Mothman they blame the bridge collapse on the Mothman.
SPEAKER_01Well um I that's a great movie and this brings up another category that I identified which is winged creatures so I've got the mothman I've got the uh jersey devil yep yep so winged creatures on my list I got in Illinois they have the Piazza which is a man eating bird it's a giant bird but it eats people what um wow yeah in Iowa they have the Van Meter monster which is a kind of like a gargoyle sweet um but I lumped it in with you know winged yeah winged creatures yeah um New Hampshire has or no sorry Jersey has the Jersey Devil as you mentioned um New Mexico has the Thunderbird which is Thunderbird dinosaur Native American all over it all over yeah Thunderbird is is uh basically a giant pterodactyl like a pterodactyl kind of a thing and it's responsible for thunder and lightning yep if it flashes its eyes and we get lightning and it flaps its wings and we get thunder uh according to the Native Americans and there is two more winged creatures one of course is Mothman West Virginia and then Virginia right next door has a cryptid called Snally gaster and it's kind of a gargoyle similar to the Van Meter monster in Iowa okay yeah so these are these are the winged cryptids nice yeah on my list. Do you have a favorite out of those um probably Jersey Devil just because I remember watching a cryptid thing when I was probably a teenager and there was this gnarly like pencil sketch of the Jersey Devil that you know a a an eyewitness drew. They were like this is what it looks like and it's freaky looking gnarly looking pencil sketch. And of course it's such a big deal that Jersey named their hockey team the Jersey Devil the Jersey Devils yeah so this is a this is a big deal in Jersey for sure that's cool winged cryptids and I'm trying besides Bigfoot I don't think Arkansas has anything I mean we got the Ozark Holler but but he's kind of yeah he's he's not even like B tier he's like C tier yeah but people swear that they hear the Ozark Howler at night out in the woods screaming for y'all that aren't in Arkansas is the Ozark Howler is it's a it's a big cat. It's essentially a big cat.
SPEAKER_02Yeah moun lion and but it it apparently has a blood curdling scream which and people who don't hunt or don't know mounions do sound like a crying or screaming woman. Yeah and it's very I've heard it before and it's it's unnerving. It is that's a great word right there.
SPEAKER_01It really is yeah but yeah the this this the mountain lion scream has lent itself to an Arkansas cryptid called the the Ozark Howard yeah yeah and actually when I was looking at surrounding states um there has been quote unquote sightings of the Ozark Howler in Texas Oklahoma and Missouri now you s okay not sightings so just hearing it well that's why I said quote unquote okay sightings yeah people claiming so that one's a little bit more for me like that could be you out in the woods always thought that one show was hilarious uh the big redneck dudes it was on the scary channel they have all this evidence but they never catch Bigfoot or no there was one I remember watching a detective show kind of thing and this guy found a a print a bigfoot print footprint and he made like a mold of it like a plaster mold of it and when he brought the mold into the to the so-called experts there was fur like long strands of fur stuck in the mold and he was like this hair was all around the footprint I just poured the plaster into the footprint and the hair came with it so he's like this is Bigfoot's fur you know like what was it oh I think in the end they they it was like some lady's hair bigfoot it's gotta be or it was like a one of the like a dog with long with a long coat he he he slapped it in it that's so funny that reminds me of a movie called the Saswatch gang and it's got Justin Long it's a comedy but it's about uh a small town and uh they want to get famous so yeah long story short Justin Long is a super big redneck dude with a bowl it really dumb but he makes a bigfoot turd with eggs and everything it's hilarious. But the big question is does he die in the movie?
SPEAKER_02He does not die the second time he survived you will laugh your butt out it's funny because in that movie they watch uh Jason and the Argonauts oh really in that movie yeah look at everything comes full circle what's called uh the Sasquatch gang it it is from the same director I think of Napoleon Dynamite oh it's in that kind of comedy you that's gonna be if you watch it with the girls it'll be you'll have a great time that's awesome that's awesome you're gonna laugh totally off topic did you know that the Minecraft movie is the Napoleon dynamite director guy never seen it I don't know nothing about Minecraft well yeah but you know that just made yeah yeah with Jack Black Rye yeah yeah that was the Napoleon dynamite director really he's moving up on the world okay so um let's see I got one more like category that I kind of lumped these cryptids into um there is several cryptids where it's like kind of half man half dog or half man half dog dog man yeah man dog yeah so when we talked to Haynes Whitmore our buddy who's a director up in Michigan we asked him about what's Michigan's cryptid and he said dog man and uh dog man yeah but a couple others in Louisiana they got the roogaroo I've heard of roogaroo rougaroo is a wolf headed man that sounds awesome beast um yeah Michigan has dog man Montana has the devil dog okay which is uh again a half man half dog kind of hybrid cryptid you keep saying I guess chubacabra wouldn't be mixed we're we're gonna talk about chubacabra he's he's his own thing okay okay yeah um Wisconsin has the beast of bray road heard of this I think there's a a documentary or something about that I've seen a while back yeah that's kind of a bigger one that is a bigger one this one is it's it's a wolf man hybrid yeah some people even say it is a werewolf yeah the beast of bray road um then those are the ones I I uh categorize everything else we got is kind of just random but you did mention aliens so let's talk about aliens really quick okay um in Massachusetts they have the Dover Demon which when described by Dover demon when the Dover demon has been described by eyewitnesses it's it's a little grey a little gray alien is what it is.
SPEAKER_01Okay and then also um in Mississippi believe it or not their cryptid is called the Pascaula alien Pascagoula alien yeah and it's a little gray man a little three foot tall gray man big bulging alien they're your typical little alien yeah both Dover demon and the Pascagoula alien are are your typical dis you know your typical description of a of a UFO alien and that's funny because the movie I had in here for my cryptid alien was we talked about it before Fire in the sky yeah and that's terrifying scene and those are the big head of the grave so yeah yeah so that yeah we got those um let's just do a few of the kind of random ones um Hawaii has the Minahoonie if I'm not sure if I'm saying that right Minahoone they're like leprechauns basically they're they're leprechauns in the sense that they're little people okay and um the people of Hawaii you know people that we would consider indigenous Hawaiians you know they came to Hawaii from Polynesia right and when they got to Hawaii there was already some existing architecture but there were no people there that would have been responsible for the the the buildings and stuff that they found.
SPEAKER_02So they chalk it up to the Minahoonie the Minahoonie yeah they say well they must have built it so they've got Minahoonies but no big footies right exactly exactly uh Indiana has a weird one the beast of busgo Indiana the beast of bus go and this is a giant snapping turtle no way five some people say it's 500 pounds no way now that one would be easier to find though right because it's slow and they've never found it but they but people have seen it people have seen it but they've never found it it's a snapping turtle that just didn't stop growing got to be about 500 pounds.
SPEAKER_01Kentucky has the Pope Lick Goat Man. I've heard of this one yeah and the drawings he looks kind of like a uh like your typical fairy tale kind of man on the top goat legs on the bottom kind of thing uh so that's kind of funny uh let's talk about Stephen King's mane okay um they have the Spectre Moose the Spectre Moose yes and I'm gonna tell you something cool here because I haven't because you I don't think you watched it yet welcome to dairy I haven't watched it okay welcome to dairy uh before Pennywise uh takes his final form as the dancing clown one of his early forms that he takes in the show Welcome to Dairy is the Spectre Moose. Oh really yeah what's that look like it looks like a ghost a giant ghost moose a giant ghost moose and they show in this show Welcome to Dairy they show the Spectre Moose terrorizing like the natives in Maine but it's in in the show it's not a cryptid it's it's pennywise pennywise yeah but so they took Maine's actual cryptid and they put it in the show isn't that cool that's really neat yeah I love that uh let's see and no and I'm gonna sub yeah just a shout out you did say that show is worth watching it is fantastic just to okay it is absolutely fantastic don't miss it uh New Hampshire has the wood devil and the wood devil is suspiciously like bigfoot but where bigfoot is furry the wood devil has no fur see that'd be creepier that's and where hairless Bigfoot and where Bigfoot is genuine gen generally a kind of a hulking behemoth of the wood devils are like rail thin like a thin man kind of version of like a solid man yes so New Hampshire if you're ever in the woods in New Hampshire you might see a like a seven eight nine foot who weighs 90 pounds rail thin hairless him though like you can push him over you you duck down behind him and I'll push you this one is super weird okay ohio has frogman they got a movie about have you seen frogman? Yes okay this is why it's weird they got to the bottom of this one they discovered what people were actually seeing what somebody called the cops this wasn't long ago this was like 10 15 years ago somebody called the cops in Ohio and said I shot frogman I got him come Come see, come get 'em.
unknownWhat was it?
SPEAKER_01It was a very large iguana with no tail.
SPEAKER_02That's what it was. So that's where the in uh I'm so many of these legends are probably something just like that, man.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there's I mean, a lot of them, I'm sure, have a logical explanation. But somehow break the whole floor. It's an iguana with no tail. But it was an especially large iguana, apparently. But yeah, it had no tail. So people, I guess, would see it like climbing over a fence. And be like, that's a frogman. That's a giant frog. That's a dang giant frog man. Yep. So I guess they got rednecks in Ohio, also.
SPEAKER_02They've got rednecks in every state, dude.
SPEAKER_01Uh, Pennsylvania has a weird one called Squonk. Or squonk, maybe. Squonk? Squonk. I'm not quite sure how to say. It's like a it's not a large thing. It's a little tiny animal. It's another um it's covered in warts. It's not a guana again. Well, they haven't caught this one. Very well. Stephen very well could be. The squonk is a is a fairly small little four-legged creature. Here's where it gets weird. He's covered in warts. He's uh ashamed of his appearance. That's why that's why nobody's ever really that's sad. That's why nobody's ever really been able to catch him or see him. Because he's uh embarrassed. He's embarrassed of the warts. His warts to the point that he actually cries everywhere he goes. What is this crypto? Yeah. When they're messing with I'm not messing with you, dude. Look this up. Look at my bug line. When they go looking for when they go trying to track this thing down, they look for a trail of tears. I'm not kidding you. They wanna this is how you people don't really do this, dude. They do no people go hunting for I guess you couldn't do it in the rain.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's all I'm sorry if you're listening to this and you're really into that thing and and we're making fun of it, but uh I wow. That's too funny. That is funny.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's a good one. He's so ashamed he cries everywhere. He he he he stays out of sight and cries. I guess not good enough though. People have seen him. Some people have seen him. There's drawings of him out there. That might be my favorite. I'm gonna have to look this up. I'm it's it's hilarious.
SPEAKER_02It's absolutely hilarious.
SPEAKER_01I'll let me my day. Here's a good one. And actually, I I was aware of this one. Rhode Island. They claim to have a real vampire as their cryptid.
SPEAKER_00The Exeter vampire.
SPEAKER_01What? And I actually read this story on a or heard about this story on a podcast that I used to listen to quite a while ago. Um there was people dying in this town. I think it was around the same time as the Salem Witch trials. There was a few. It's been a minute, yeah. There were people dying in this town, and they ended up blaming it on this little girl, saying that she was a vampire. And so they killed her and buried her. And um, some years later, the deaths started happening again in this little village in this town, Exeter, Exeter, Rhode Island. So they said, somebody said, We better dig up that vampire girl and make sure she's still dead.
SPEAKER_02She wasn't there.
SPEAKER_01No, they dug her up and she was like perfectly preserved as if she was still, as if they had just buried her yesterday.
unknownWow.
SPEAKER_01But on the podcast that I listened to where they talked about this specifically, it had something to do with tuberculosis.
SPEAKER_02It was something like if you die from tuberculosis, there was a scientific reason why she looked preserved.
SPEAKER_01There's something about if you die from tuberculosis, you don't deteriorate as fast or something to that effect. And so when they dug her up, she looked like they had just buried her in the middle of the day. And of course she had to be a vampire. It had been years, you know, and so now, you know, that was the evidence. That was proof enough. Because they thought she was a vampire when they buried her. Then they really that was proof enough to them that she really is a vampire. And so now she, this little girl that's sad about the little girl is the cryptid of Rhode Island.
SPEAKER_02So they didn't kill her, though, tuberculosis, or she just had it. I guess she just had it.
SPEAKER_01And then they killed her? I maybe she talked about bad luck. Maybe she didn't even know that she had it. I don't know. But they killed her because they blamed her for these murders.
SPEAKER_02But who said she had tuberculosis?
SPEAKER_01Well, I guess when they eventually they I don't know if they studied her body.
SPEAKER_02She never had it.
SPEAKER_01I don't know if they studied her body after they exhumed it, or if years later, when we knew more about tuberculosis, then maybe we were like, oh, hey, by the way, this was that. And this is what got me right. You know. Yeah. So a couple more. Let's see what we're let's see how we're doing on time here. Oh, yeah, we got another five or ten minutes, and we only have a few more to go. Um, South Carolina has Lizard Man.
SPEAKER_02Lizard Man, okay.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, Lizard Man is just how he sounds. He's Lizard Man, big skeleton. Half lizard. Okay, it did say that he has a muscular chest.
SPEAKER_02He's been hit. When I was present.
SPEAKER_01When I was reading about Lizard Man, it did say that he has a muscular chest.
SPEAKER_02I just think of Spider-Man, and you know Lizard Man.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, the lizard, yeah, Spider-Man. Yeah. So, yeah, Lizard Man, if you're in South Carolina, you might be approached by chesty lizard man.
SPEAKER_02And he he's not ashamed. He's not crying, he's proud of his big chest, but he's puffing, he's puffy.
SPEAKER_01He's not crying.
SPEAKER_02He's he's flaunting it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, he's flaunting it, yeah, 100%. Um, this one is kind of along lines of the vampire thing. Um, Tennessee's uh cryptid is a witch, the bell witch.
SPEAKER_02Bellwitch. They got an American haunting.
SPEAKER_01Yep, I mean American Haunting is is a is a book that was written. Yes, but it's based on a book called The Bell Witch that was written by a native Tennessean who's says he's had encounters.
SPEAKER_02And that's the only uh written-down case where someone was actually killed for the haunting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. So and the bell witch is invisible. No one's ever seen her, but she can those invisible witches are the worst. Yeah, she can have an effect on you. Um as I was studying Bell Witch, I saw that um the Blair Witch project, that's they basically knock off. They took the idea from for the Bell Witch and adapted it to their own cause to their movie. Yeah. Uh we got just a couple more here. Um, as mentioned before in Texas, we got that little chupacabra. Yeah, so um you mentioned why isn't he in the dog conversation? And apparently, when we see him here in America, in the Southwest, in the American Southwest, he does resemble a dog. But he's more commonly seen in Mexico and Central America than South America. And he's yeah, he's more like he's more like uh scaly or I've seen dog inventories on the other.
SPEAKER_02Goat sucker, yeah.
SPEAKER_01That's his preferred prey, is to eat a goat. Suck the blood out of a goat. But yeah, um he's he's not he's not necessarily dog. Um he's he's more kind of reptilian, I think. Okay. Um but chupacabra is one that I have seen people have caught something that they claim is a chupacabra.
SPEAKER_02I've seen those pictures. Yeah. Or the a a good video, too.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there's there's definitely photographic evidence out there of supposed chupacabras.
SPEAKER_02Now, here's where it's gonna start getting crazy in the next maybe five, ten years, because it's already getting through I don't know with AI. Yeah, how are we gonna be able to tell anything anymore?
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_02So that's what's really scary.
SPEAKER_01I haven't tried to look up AI cryptids. I bet you there's some cool stuff on it. Oh, you know it. Yeah, you should. Yeah, let's do that. Okay, uh, we got we only got two more, and then we covered all 50 states.
SPEAKER_02After you get, and I'm gonna name a couple movies to see. Yeah, please. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Uh Vermont has Pig Man, and there's a picture of Pig Man, and he literally looks like Motel Hell. Yes, it's some movie moving. We love that movie, dude. Man body with a pig head. It's all is exactly like it sounds.
SPEAKER_02See, I want that one to be real.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, Vermont has Pigman. Last one, uh, Wyoming, and we all know him and love him. The Jackalope. The Jackalope. Yeah, Jackalope is Wyoming's cryptid. Uh, I've been to Wyoming.
SPEAKER_02Jackalope.
SPEAKER_01And Wyoming is the kind of place where you would definitely swear you saw a jackalope running across the road.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01But um, Jackalope actually does have a basis in reality. How so? Now, when you see a lot of these, you go into like a gas station in Wyoming, you'll see a jackalope mounted on the wall. The antlers, but it's usually a deer antler stuck on our on a rabbit's head. Yeah. But um the way that it all popped up in into the national consciousness in the first place is it's it's actually a real thing. Rabbits can get this disease where they get these like calcium formations that like grow out of their skull that look like antlers. And they look like antlers. So you might actually come across a a rabbit or a hare or a jackalope that has quote unquote antlers, but it's it's like a genetic deformity/slash disease thing.
SPEAKER_02Do you remember America's Funniest Home videos in the early 90s? It was by Bob Sagitt, and they had the Jackalope all the time.
SPEAKER_01It was like a recurring thing. Yeah, that's the Frost and Boot. Yeah, yeah. And that's why I said we all know them, we all love them. Yeah, good one. Definitely. So, yeah, Jackalope makes the list and closes out our 50 states of cryptid, y'all.
SPEAKER_02I like that. Um awesome job with your research tonight, Paul. Oh, thank you. I'm gonna take back some of the things I said about you earlier. You've oh you've earned it. We've been talking about so a couple of movies. Um, tell me how you felt about cryptid. I uh I wanted to go with uh the ritual. It's Norris myth creature in the woods, it's heavy atmosphere and threads.
SPEAKER_01I would say that counts, right?
SPEAKER_02And that creature at the end awesome creature design.
SPEAKER_01One of the best creature designs you'll ever see in horror.
SPEAKER_02It's that movie not so metal, dude.
SPEAKER_01That movie is fantastic.
SPEAKER_02The next I have is Antlers.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02It's dark, bleak take on the Window legend.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, Antlers is great.
SPEAKER_02This one I wanted to get your take on because it could be really uh, I don't know, the descent. It's not a traditional cryptid, but the creatures feel like undiscovered humanoids to me in that movie.
SPEAKER_01I think so. Would you go cryptid with that? The Cave Dwellers.
SPEAKER_02And out of all those, I wouldn't want to run into those dudes in a movie.
SPEAKER_01That's a terrifying movie. Yeah. That is one of the what is that, 04-05?
SPEAKER_02I think it's 04.
SPEAKER_01That is that's one of the movies that legitimately scared me. Yeah, we've got as a seasoned horror fan who doesn't really get scared. That was one of the movies that I wouldn't see.
SPEAKER_02It's so underrated. Not too many people know about that movie.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. When you mentioned Antlers, that just all of a sudden popped into my head. Did you ever see Horns? Yep. Written by Stephen King's son, Joe Hill, starring Harry Potto.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, Daniel Radcliffe.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um that was a good little flick. Yeah, I forgot about Hords. You could probably, because there's a goat man cryptid, you could maybe throw Daniel Radcliffe in there as a as a kind of a cryptid.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01That's true. Yeah. I didn't think.
SPEAKER_02And my last one, it's just a really fun movie. It's Danish and it's called Troll Hunter.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02It's unique, it's gritty, it's documentary style take on trolls being real in it, the gore in it, the kills, they're so fun. It's black.
SPEAKER_01Great movie. So that is a fun, fun movie.
SPEAKER_02Isn't it? They made a part two. I don't know if you know. No, I didn't know that.
SPEAKER_01I haven't seen part two. Awesome.
SPEAKER_02This was fun, man. And your research on this, it like you said, all these states, and it's the tradition of it, man. And yeah, you know, our kids know about Bigfoot and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01And I love that each state has their own, like kind of quick official one. Yeah. It's pretty neat. It's a it's a neat thing. And it's I just love one of the things as I've gotten older and I have been fortunate enough to travel around America, is you know, these little things uh that help with regional identity. Yeah, they're really they're really fascinating and really interesting. And uh it just puts a smile on my face.
SPEAKER_02Little side note, listeners, uh, me, Paul, Joey, and Ivan from last week, we are really getting together and talking about taking a trip to Texacarta, Texas, and then the Falk to see that. And I would love to do a podcast on that town.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we're talking about maybe doing a podcast on the road as we venture to uh the place where the Phantom Killer was uh was active, and then a little further south where the Boggy Creek monster has been sighted.
SPEAKER_02I'm really looking forward to that.
SPEAKER_01So that's one that's one thing that hopefully is coming sooner rather than later. One thing that's coming real soon is tomorrow, uh Friday, May 8th. The episode of Don Amantis that we guested on is gonna be released tomorrow. At least part one is gonna be released. You just told me that they're splitting it into two parts.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's a two-hour show, a little over two hours, so they split it.
SPEAKER_01So that's gonna be cool. I'm excited about that.
SPEAKER_02And he said it might be on YouTube. So you can just see our beautiful faces.
SPEAKER_01All right. All right. Well, uh, yeah, so tomorrow, which would be today for you listeners, because I'll be posting this tomorrow. But if it's Friday, May 8th, and you're listening to this episode, this wonderful episode of Haunted Ozark Theater, hop over to Donna Mantis and listen to the freshly uploaded episode that we guested on. And uh this is this is for us, this is uh numerically, this is episode 29. But counting our episode zero, this is our 30th episode.
SPEAKER_02Nice.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Speaking of episodes, what do we got for next week's listeners? Do you have anything planned?
SPEAKER_01Or is it gonna be uh it's time to surprise them again? Okay, we didn't talk about it. We didn't talk about that, okay. So we're gonna have to we're gonna have to but I want to get back to uh a film of some kind, a film or a film series because we we didn't we weren't we weren't real heavy on on films today.
SPEAKER_02We we talked a little bit about films, but I brought in the films, you brought in the the lore.
SPEAKER_01You did, you did, and I applaud you for that.
SPEAKER_02Well, thank you keeping us on top.
SPEAKER_01All right, y'all. Thanks for listening.
SPEAKER_02Thank you guys. Go find Bigfoot.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, bring us evidence. We want to be the ones that practice it.