Scream Together, Dream Together

What do you get when you cross two horror-loving writers, a glow-in-the-dark monster, and a six-year-old in a Jason mask? A conversation that’s equal parts creepy, creative, and surprisingly grounded.

Vienna and John join Corey (with Kendall in the main episode) to talk about their upcoming gothic novel Victoria Frankenstein, how horror shaped their relationship, and why fear is sometimes the most honest tool for growth. From Halloween chaos and killer clowns to writing trauma into fiction and raising spooky kids, this episode dives into horror as a lifestyle, a lens, and a language.

They break down their reimagined Frankenstein mythology (no erotica here, thank you), their DIY book design process, and how horror helps them, and their daughter, understand red flags, emotional safety, and the world at large.

Scream Together, Dream Together

🕷️ Topics Include:

• A new Frankenstein myth rooted in science, not sorcery (and glowing veins!)
• Vienna’s goth-mom origin story and John's fear-as-community philosophy
• Horror as emotional training: how spooky movies taught survival instincts
• Trick-or-treat streets, horror cons, and the great Fear Street defense
• Raising a “spooky girl” with good boundaries and better costumes
• Building a book series as a couple without killing each other
• Favorite final people and why Ready or Not still slaps
• How the Horror Heals podcast sparked personal reflection

🔬 About Victoria Frankenstein

Vienna and John’s debut novel reimagines Mary Shelley’s monster through a gothic-sci-fi lens, centered on a woman forced to rebuild her life after unleashing something she may not be able to stop. There’s bioluminescent blood, a juggernaut creature, and zero apologies for staying rooted in real science. Book one of The Dread Legacies series drops October 1st.

📚 Referenced in This Episode:

• Fear Street trilogy
• Ready or Not, The Others, Killer Klowns from Outer Space
• Dream House, Goosebumps, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
• Victoria Frankenstein: The Dread Legacies, Book One (pre-order coming soon)

👻 Stay Connected:

• Follow Vienna and John on Instagram: @dreadlegacies

Thank you for listening to Horror Heals. 

Share the show with someone who loves horror and someone who needs a little healing.

If you want to support our guests, check the show notes for links to their work, conventions, and fundraising pages.

You can also listen to our sister podcast Family Twist, a show about DNA surprises, identity, and the families we find along the way.

Horror Heals is produced by How the Cow Ate the Cabbage LLC.

Is horror good for mental wellness? Of corpse it is.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Hello, foils and dudes. It's your old pal trying to hear the voice of the creep keeper. And I want to welcome my good friends of the Horror Heels Podcast. Is horror good for mental wellness? But of course it is. I delight in the delicious deaths of pitiful people on the silver screen. So get ready for a hell of a good time with my new fiends, Corey and Kendall, on the Horror Heels Podcast.

SPEAKER_05 1:01

Hey there, spooky souls and creeps that heal. Welcome back to Horror Heals. I'm Corey, and while Kendall isn't on this intro, don't worry, he is in the episode, asking the good questions and sharing his deep love for the others, and of course, Jason Voorhees. Today's guests? A couple after our own spooky hearts. Vienna and John, horror fans, creators, parents of a self-proclaimed spooky girl, and the wicked minds behind the upcoming gothic novel Victoria Frankenstein, The Dread Legacies, Book 1, coming this October. So we're talking everything from Halloween movies and trick-or-treat chaos to killer clowns, haunted book collections, how horror actually helps you build better relationships, and what it's like to create an original take on Frankenstein that's rooted in science, empathy, and glowing veins. Also, yes, we talk about Fear Street, and we agree that paper cutters should be classified as horror weapons. So let's dig right into it because horror isn't just about the monsters and gore, it's about connection, catharsis, and the kind of creativity that glows in the dark. Vienna, John, thank you for joining us on the Horror Heels Podcast.

SPEAKER_02 2:15

Thank you for having us.

SPEAKER_05 2:16

We love seeing an you know another couple that are into horror like we are. Have you been a horror fan since you were kids?

SPEAKER_03 2:27

Yes. So it started really early with me. I grew up in Minnesota, and so it was very much like uh we would go out into the dark in the 90s and Halloween, and there would just be a sea of children, and they'd be chaperoned by their parents while they're wearing their costumes because you can't see out of them, and there's very little light in the street. And I loved it. I loved it. I was I'm I'm four, five, six years old walking the streets going, it's dark, it's scary, and there's a bunch of children around. Man, this is fun. And so it slowly turned into like uh when Schoolastic would release all of these like Halloween-themed books. So, you know, you've got Clifford, you've got Corduroy Bear, you've got the Bernstein Bears, and now they're carbon pumpkins. And I'm like, what my favorite thing? You also have Halloween themes, so it slowly turned into that for me, and then it turned into my friend introducing me to goosebumps, and I was like, they write books just about scary things all the time, and they're like, Yeah, I'm like, oh my gosh. So it kind of just turned into this slow evolution of me falling in love with horror through all the stages, you know, for especially as a kid, and then as you get into adulthood, especially with my sisters, whoever Halloween would buy the the entire like film collection for like a nightmare on Elm Street or Michael Myers, and we'd just sit there all Halloween watching these movies. So I watched pretty much every horror movie that came out before 1994 before I was 10. Awesome. Good.

SPEAKER_05 4:05

Vieta, how about you? How did you get into horror?

SPEAKER_02 4:07

It was a little different, not necessarily jumping into horror. It was more an early start for the love of the macabre. I grew up really looking up to my mom, who was like an 80s goth, kind of, you know, just loving all of that, the aesthetic, the music, and all of that. So I already had it in mind. I wanted to be as witchy as possible, just like my mom then. And then I started to slowly over time discover the genre as a child, just like John Goosebum, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. I did so many dramatic retellings of those stories. I would memorize them and oh yeah, I was a blessed at children's birthday parties. So yeah, it kind of just grew from that and then amplified when John and I ended up getting together. I was getting introduced to an array of movies, and you know, as an early age, John had been introduced to it, whereas I wasn't so much, it was more the stories that I kind of grasped and jumped into.

SPEAKER_03 5:25

When I first met her, I went into a room and saw her bookshelf full of books, and she had Clive Barker books that weren't Hellraiser, and I was like, what are those? And she's like, please don't ask about those. But they were horror books, and I was just like, I fell in love immediately. I was like, Oh, a woman who has a bookshelf full of just books, I just couldn't help myself, you know.

SPEAKER_05 5:52

Every time we do one of these interviews, like it conjures memories. And I know before we were recording, we were talking about horror cons and meeting like icons and stuff, but meeting Clive Barker, whoo, that was incredible because Cabal was like one of my all-time favorites. And yeah, there were people just like completely dressed head to toe, like his characters, you know, waiting in line to meet him and stuff, and it was that was pretty wild.

SPEAKER_03 6:15

Yeah, that sounds fun.

SPEAKER_05 6:18

I know. I mean, I'm definitely drawn to the stuff too. Like, I think when I was a little kid, some of the stuff scared me, but it's like, you know how you try you kind of explore the things that scare you a little bit. And I think that I was that way. When I was uh five, my mom took the three of us kids to California to spend Christmas with our grandparents, and we went to Disneyland on Christmas Day, and they had to stop the haunted mansion ride to take me off because I was so hysterical.

SPEAKER_04 6:47

Oh yeah. That's my core.

SPEAKER_05 6:49

That's so um did when you first met, did you let each other know that you were into horror immediately, or was it like something slowly like, well, maybe I better not, you know, I don't want to scare her off.

SPEAKER_03 6:59

I think it was more like I think it was more like we both just liked pop culture so much that horror was kind of ingrained in it for us. So we kind of just were like, hey, I like watching this thing, and it's like, oh, cool, let's check it out. And so even like The Walking Dead was going on around that time, it was kind of really big then, and so we were just like, Oh, hey, the Walking Dead's on, do you watch that? And then immediately we were just like, Yeah, we watch it, and so we we'd sit and watch it together. We watched it in bars with friends, we watched it with family, we would sit there and analyze the Walking Dead episodes after The Walking Dead, and that was before they started doing the Talking Dead. I saw, and that's back when cable was still kind of big before the streaming wars and everything kind of died down a little bit. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 7:49

I think it was kind of just unsaid given the circles we ran in, because you know, back then it was punk shows and just a lot of seeing each other in those circles, so it was kind of already just in addition to the pop culture, we kind of just already assumed in you.

SPEAKER_05 8:14

It was before we started doing this podcast, I think it was just sort of in our subconscious that horror was something that we would turn to if we had a really bad day or something like that. Let's put on a horror movie, not really understanding why I'm getting such great vibes at a horror convention, and it wasn't until I was at a horror convention last year that this aha moment arose, and it's so interesting how many people are like, Yes, absolutely, horror is good for my anxiety, it's good for my depression, it's good for you know, it's an escape for me. So did you have that revelation yourselves?

SPEAKER_02 8:47

It kind of just snapped together while writing our book together, and then it finally kind of cemented in in discovering your podcast. I'm like, no, yeah, it all checks out, it makes sense. Other people are seeing it too now. It wasn't just a one-off with us that we started to experience this cathartic and kind of just therapeutic feeling. So grains of them were there throughout the whole process and in connecting with other people and just simply discussing, but I think it all was perfectly wrapped up with the book and with the podcast.

SPEAKER_03 9:32

Yeah, discovering your podcast really made me analyze myself, and so I was like, what is it about hard that I really like that really uh open something up for me? And what I found was that I found a healing in community. And the thing is, is that I come from a very like peppered past, you know, and so being able to find people that I can actually sit and have a conversation with and discuss things, especially after a horror movie, you know, and so you open up about fear, fear that you usually talk about with family or it's or talk about with friends, you can do that with you know your partner, you can do that with just anyone that you want to watch a movie with or even read a book with, you know, if you're at a book club or anything like that, and you can analyze these fears and these anxieties and also talk about the social economical eras of the books or the stories themselves of the movies, and so being able to do that with other people really meant a lot to me, and that's where I find my healing is being able to bond with people for sure.

SPEAKER_05 10:35

Yeah, same, absolutely. Well, and it's just it's inspiring for us to see partners working together on a project. You know, Kendall and I have been together for 20 years, and over the 20 years, you know, we've helped each other with stuff like you know, like I'll help with help with my resume or you know, or my books and and stuff like that. But it wasn't until we started our first podcast three years ago that we did a creative project together. And it's just definitely I mean, it's like we talk about it daily, you know, it's just become like the next chapter of our our you know partnership, and it's just great. I mean, we love collaborating on it, you know. Sometimes we, you know, we have disagreements over this, that, and the other, but I would say 90% of the time we're on the same page. How did you decide to start collaborating on a book together?

SPEAKER_03 11:18

When we weren't writing, we would just talk. She matched my weird, and so I matched her. It was a lot of improv throughout the house. Every morning cooking breakfast together, and jokes would be flying, and we would just be coming up with characters off the top of our head to mess around with. We honestly just worked off of each other so well when it came to everyday life that when we started talking about these ideas and these stories, they started to pile up, and eventually we just looked at each other and went, Do you want to write a book? Do you want to write a story together? And you know, should we turn this into something or should we just not? Or is that too much? Do you think that jumping into something like that is just not what our goals are? We both really love writing. So there's no we've all like even before we got together, they were a writer, I was a writer. I've been writing since I was 15 or 13 actually. I started studying how to write when I was 15. It was a lot of me just writing things down and not knowing that there was key elements that you should add, or you know, the three-act installment or anything like that. And then when I was 15, I haven't stopped reading. Ever since I was 15, just buying books on how to write a story, how to tell a story, the hero's arc, things like that. And so it just never stopped for me. And so we just looked at each other one day and went, let's apply our skill, let's make something together. And we love what we've created.

SPEAKER_02 12:47

Yeah, it felt really natural given as John had already described, we just worked so well with each other in all other aspects, creating characters, going off on improv, just any smaller story ideas, even. When John and I first got together, we were working on our own creative projects, had so many movie script ideas and concepts, and a few of them written out. I was delving more into graphic novels. So we would tell each other so much about our own ideas that we felt comfortable enough giving feedback and ideas to help the other. So it just made sense for us to go in on a book series of our own as equal partners. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 13:42

I mean, we got your message. I was immediately intrigued by your concept because I love the idea of taking the classics and giving them a new spin, giving them a new life. Can you talk a little bit about the origin of the book and a little bit of the story? You don't have to give away everything. Yeah, please don't.

SPEAKER_02 14:01

So a majority of the story takes place in 1813 in the Kingdom of Holland. And we have a woman of high society who has to give up everything and rebuild her life with the common folk, and she can't help but have this impending anticipation, this fear of the monster she has created come back from her past and destroy everything that she's worked on to rebuild. The concepts for the story started back in 2020. We just had an array of ideas for it, and it made sense to bring it all together. It touches on a lot of themes of horror, sci-fi.

SPEAKER_03 15:00

I think a lot of it also comes from when we started writing this idea, the first because it's meant to be part of a series. This first book is Victoria Frankenstein. And so when we started writing this one, there weren't a lot of options. There wasn't a whole lot of stories out there about Frankenstein. Granted, I'm I'm wrong. We've looked into there's there's like I I think 14,000 reiterations of Frankenstein in literary form. Most of them are erotic, unfortunately. And then if you you know, if if you check out some of the movies, there's like I Frankenstein, which I mean, you know, for fun time, that's you know, that's something to watch, but it's not generally something I prefer to put in my movie collection. And then the original is the only Frankenstein movie that I really refer to that I like because I like the black and white, and I like the macabre, and I like the the noir you know contrast, and and there's a gothic feeling to it. But I try and watch like the 1991 Frankenstein, and something just doesn't sit right with me, and it's not really like my thing. So I'm kind of excited for like Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein, which comes out later this year, because it gives me more options, it gives me something else. You know, you like Dracula, but you also like the Lost Boys, you have options to go to when you want to find these things. But for Frankenstein, it's so ingrained in pop culture and spooky culture where you can find a dozen different kinds of masks and you can see it plastered all over candy bags and everything. But when it comes to media, when it comes to consuming the stories, there's so little that isn't erotica that you can find and try and consume that you and know that you enjoy going back to that story again and again. You know, you could probably do that for Braumstroker's Dracula, but it's hard to do that for Frankenstein. I would love to find a version out there in the world that I know I would be looking for, and that's something that we both came up with. We both were like, we want to tell a story that we know we would love to find, and that's something that we could return to over and over again.

SPEAKER_04 17:13

Wow, we can't wait to see it.

SPEAKER_05 17:15

Can you talk a little bit about the monster, the creature?

SPEAKER_02 17:20

We were very particular with how we wanted to write the monster. We had underlying themes for how to present it, how to describe him. The word that would sum him up is a juggernaut.

SPEAKER_03 17:39

Okay. And we also wanted to kind of keep it in this realm of science fiction. We didn't want to go into some kind of uh paranormal or possibly like spiritual aspect. We wanted to keep it Frankenstein, you know, so there's a lot of that grounded in real science that's in the book, and so there's and I'm gonna spoil it, there's a bioluminescence that you can find in the ocean, and it when it feels attacked, it starts to glow. You can probably Google some images of it, but on the shores, you'll see this like glow happen uh in certain areas, sometimes I think Croatia, and the bioluminescence in the shore will start to glow because when it hits the shore it thinks it's getting attacked, and so a glow will happen in the water, but it happens in their blood, so their veins glow. So what you see is the mapping of a human immune system in the dark, right? And for us, we thought, oh, how how awfully terrifying to see something like that walking toward you in the night. So we cared a lot about keeping everything grounded in realism and science for Victoria Frankenstein. And on top of that, there's a lot that went into building not just like how we wanted to tell his story, but a lot into what he turns into in the story itself, which I won't give away. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 19:14

Is there a sympathetic aspect to the creature?

SPEAKER_02 19:20

There is, in essence, it has a lot to do with a lot of our underlying themes of a world built by kind children. Though creation in itself is faux, it's not a natural birthing. It is still life being created, it is still in essence some type of child. So in that there is empathy that could be extended, but it doesn't take away the atrocities committed.

SPEAKER_05 20:06

And you guys have little ones, right?

SPEAKER_02 20:08

We do, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 20:09

And how do they feel about horror in general and Halloween and all that?

SPEAKER_03 20:12

Man. So she's she walks around the house and she says, I'm a spooky girl. And then whenever I name a horror movie, she's like, I don't like horror, I don't like scary movies, and then I'm like, I'm gonna watch Killer Clowns from Outer Space right now, and she's like, Oh, I love that movie, love it. That movie's so good. We have a lot of conversation around this because she is she's turning seven, and when we introduce her to things like Killer Clowns from Outer Space, a lot of discussion happens during and after the movie. That these are this is a fake scenario, that these this is of special effects makeup, that what's happening, no one's really getting hurt, and to understand that that doesn't change that she gets scared sometimes, but that's what we want. We want to show her these things so that she understands real real world fears, something to actually be afraid of, and that she can recognize these red flags later. That's something that I learned when I was a kid, but it wasn't through horror movies, it was through America's Most Wanted on Fox. And my mom was like, No, you gotta learn, you gotta you gotta learn about this stuff. It saved my life a dozen times. There were plenty of times I saw red flags, and I was like, if I didn't watch America's Most Wanted growing up, I don't know if I would have ever known that. And so there's a lot of conversation that happens between us and our daughter. She happens to love a lot of the spookies, but we show her a few of the older horror movies, and we try and minimize it because we don't want to show her everything, because not everything's for her, not everything's meant for kids.

SPEAKER_04 21:56

Right. But I applaud you both for doing that because I feel like you just described my father when I was a child. He did exactly that, he loved horror, and so he didn't want me to not enjoy it, but he really did explain it to me. He really helped me, and I have to admit, I rarely got scared because I knew this is make-believe, and we talked about the themes, it was great, and I could see that my friend's parents definitely weren't doing that because these kids were terrified of their shadows.

SPEAKER_03 22:27

I watched a friend of mine when I was like nine get into a stranger's car and he was like, Come on! And I was like, No, I was like, You should get out, you should come with me. He didn't want to listen, and he went. And you know, I didn't see him too much after that, but I know that he was okay, but it was still a very sketchy situation, you know. You have and you watch kids growing up and you're going, That's the red flag. Let me uh help you understand that. And they're like, Why would I need to understand that? And most of the time they don't know until they know, right?

SPEAKER_05 22:58

Introducing the red flags and and what to watch out for. My dad, on the other hand, kind of a flip side to Kendall's experience, he would let me watch horror movies and he'd be the guy, like, I gotta go to the bathroom, and he'd come back with like a werewolf mask on and jump out, you know. And uh yeah, sneaking I in here, uh and that it's like I never like because I'll spook Kendall sometimes accidentally, and it just pisses him off so much that if I start laughing, but it's like, you know, it's an accident.

SPEAKER_03 23:27

Before we started recording, we were talking about Jason, I think, right? Yeah. I wanted to mention my daughter has a Jason mask. Yeah. She bought one for every time we, you know, the Halloween season comes around, we walk through the aisles and whatever mask she wants, I buy it. She doesn't ever really wear it for Halloween, she just likes having it. I bought her one of those fake butcher knives. Do you know what I mean? Like the plastic ones they sell for kids. So she ran around the house just like just making that sound with a Jason mask on. And I was just like, I hope this is just a kid thing. But she has one of those Jason masks. I thought I wanted to bring that up earlier.

SPEAKER_05 24:05

You have a good trick-or-treating area where you live?

SPEAKER_03 24:09

I lived in Minnesota, or I grew up in Minnesota trick-or-treating, and we live in Arizona now, but our daughter was born in Minnesota, and the first time she went trick-or-treating was in Minnesota. And man, they just had one street designated for trick-or-treaters, and it was just a sea of kids, just like when I was a kid.

SPEAKER_02 24:29

Every house went all out, it was wonderful.

SPEAKER_03 24:32

Now it's like she has this social butterfly thing built into her to where when we go out trick-or-treating, she just goes up to every kid and is like, Hey, can I go with you to the next house? Can I run up with you? And it's really nice to see her just be this amazingly kind child for someone who loves spooky things and horror in general. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_05 24:55

Yeah, we've been living in this house for a few years, and the previous owners, and they left us a nice letter of like, here, you know, here's who we recommend for maintenance, and yada yada. One of the things on there was Halloween is very big in this neighborhood. Make sure you have enough candy. And they weren't kidding, like it's uh it gets bigger every year. Like I stopped counting at like 250 kids this past year, and now last year we didn't run out of candy, and so like the final kid was like lucked out because I'm like, we don't want to take dump it, dump it all, take it all. And there was probably like a pound of candy there. Well, we went through I think 30 or 40 pounds this year, but I also, because we were had just launched the podcast, I put our horror heels business cards out there and said, Well, these are for mom and dad, and then this candy's for you. And you know, just taking a walk around the neighborhood a couple of months ago, like one of our neighbors we don't really know, we're just like, Hey, we've been checking out your podcast. Awesome.

SPEAKER_02 25:50

So it's like wonderful.

SPEAKER_05 25:53

But yeah, it's so cool to see. You know, just it takes you back to your childhood, you know, when you see all these kids just having a great time and cool costumes, and very polite, because like I won't necessarily be out there the whole time, but sometimes I'll have to go back in and refill the candy bowl. And you just I you see like I can see through the window, like they're taking you know one or two pieces, nobody's getting crazy or anything. Polite children around here.

SPEAKER_03 26:15

I have listened to a handful of hard heels. You know, I've seen I forget his name, and I apologize for that. But he did the uh biggest collection of goosebumps. I remember him. Yes, yes. So I've seen a handful. I don't think I've ever heard about your dog. Oh baby, maybe I missed that one of them.

SPEAKER_04 26:36

Uh, what's your dog? Oh, yeah. This is one of them. We're crazy. We have uh we don't have children, but we have six little dogs. Oh, he's okay. He's he's the big one.

SPEAKER_05 26:45

Yeah, he's 16 pounds, and then the littlest is six pounds. And uh he stays downstairs during recording because the little one because he would uh make himself known.

SPEAKER_02 26:53

Oh yeah, makes sense. All six pounds of them.

SPEAKER_05 26:56

Oh, we yeah, he'd be bouncing off of us right now.

SPEAKER_03 26:59

Well, I would love to see their Halloween costumes this year.

SPEAKER_05 27:02

That'd be great absolutely, yeah. When we were living in California, the company that I worked for was a pet supply company, and I did marketing and community outreach for them, but they always had the cutest little Halloween costumes. Our Italian Greyhound was like a dragon one year, and we had a little devil horn for our Phoebe Twicusky Shiny Ducks and Yeah, and uh and we even dressed the cat up one, you know, or Mr. Bernie was a princess for Halloween.

SPEAKER_04 27:31

Very cute. Well, I'm just curious, and this is something that we wouldn't necessarily know, but you mentioned that you enjoy graphic novels and things. Are either of you visual artists as well?

SPEAKER_02 27:44

We both are actually.

SPEAKER_04 27:46

That's what I thought.

SPEAKER_03 27:47

Uh I did the main design for our cover for our novel, and I've also been running through and mapping out what we're have planned for the series, and that's just done with photography and manipulation through photography. But outside of that, we've always been artists, whether it's lead pencils, paint, wash, alcohol markers, digital art. We're artists in many different forms.

SPEAKER_05 28:17

So are we when we get the book, are we gonna be able to physically see Victoria and the creature?

SPEAKER_02 28:24

Probably not in this edition, but we did play around with the idea about a year ago in possibly turning it into a comic. Maybe something we'll revisit in the future. At the moment, we're just kind of focusing on the storytelling.

SPEAKER_04 28:43

Well, I think it's smart to create that anticipation with the readers.

SPEAKER_05 28:48

Yeah, and there's one of the earlier episodes of Horror Heels. Our guest is our friend Jim Oosley, who is a horror comic writer. Maybe you find some inspiration in that episode, and I'd be happy to connect you with him too. He's a great guy if you're just looking for input, that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_02 29:02

Oh, that would be lovely.

SPEAKER_05 29:04

Like talking to people like that. Yeah, very cool. Well, as a listener, I'm guessing you're aware of our final question that we ask everybody, and excited to get two answers out of this. So, who is your favorite final person in a horror movie? The survivor.

SPEAKER_02 29:22

Oh.

SPEAKER_05 29:24

I know it's tough.

SPEAKER_02 29:28

It has to be from ready or not at the moment. I love how she just I love how she managed to come through. It's devastating because all this girl wanted was her own family. And so what is supposed to be the happiest day of her life, but to kind of just see her come into her. own and be left standing. It's so cathartic and wonderful to see that journey over the course of the night and the elation I felt, essentially.

SPEAKER_05 30:13

Yeah. I'm excited to see what they do with the sequel. Just because it's so trippy at the end. But I gotta say, like well, part of me would have loved to see the grandma survive just because like she was just so menacing like holding that giant axe, you know, just had the perfect look on her face. She's just like, oh man, I don't want to be anywhere near this.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

Just kind of deadpan staring at her.

SPEAKER_03 30:36

So such a good very well done. Like number two in like the most euphoric ending for me. And you know you watch her go through all of this turmoil and when everything is said and done and she's walking out kind of processing like did I just see the devil incarnate? And she's walking out just covered in blood her her wedding dress just red now and she just sits down and has a cigarette. That was extremely euphoric. Like just watching her just be relieved everything's over with. On top of that she inherits everything because she's married to that that family now. True very true. But I'd say that my favorite is probably my number one euphoric moment and that would or euphoric ending it's Daniel Craig in Dream House. And in Dream House I don't know if you've ever seen it but he In fact I don't even remember the premise but I can see the poster in my mind. He thinks he's being haunted he thinks he's being haunted by a woman and two children and he ends up finding out that he had brain damage because while murdering his wife and children they hit him in the head and gave him brain damage. So now he doesn't remember that he killed his own family. And now he keeps reliving it. But there's this kind of mystery that unravels that tells the story that he didn't really do that that he was framed for a nefarious reason. And he ends up finding out that he really is being haunted by his wife and his kids so that he can try and find some resolution just a way to cope and to get over it. And at the end when he finally finds who did it who killed his wife and kids he sees their ghosts again and he comes to cope and it's so euphoric for me because I'm just like what a revelation to just move on from such a loss. And it's movies like that like I only watched it maybe twice but it's up there in like one like I recommend that movie to a lot of people but I only watch it very little because it makes me cry. I'm like I hold it in high regard but I still won't watch it very often yeah.

SPEAKER_05 32:51

It sounds like one that we're gonna have to dig back up because I'm remembering bits and pieces as you're telling the story but it made me think one of Kendall's favorites that he asks to watch once a month is the others with Nicole Kidman. Oh yeah and it sounds like it's got a similar vibe of loss and coping and coming to resolution.

SPEAKER_04 33:09

So yeah we'll have to dig that one up yeah I don't think I've seen the others it's funny because no offense to her I don't in general I wouldn't seek out Nicole Kidman to watch. But I do think so it's I'm trying to be nice but but I think she does well in that and I just love the story you know so it's probably as much about the story as it is the acting for me.

SPEAKER_05 33:34

But I think like the top three horror movies or series that Kendall will ask to watch over and over again would be the others the Friday the 13th series which is his favorite slasher series and um oh my gosh The Village. I just think it's it's great. We both think it's great and and it was mismarketed as like a horror movie you know because and I think people were disappointed that it turned out to not be a traditional horror movie but there are certainly some horror elements to it.

SPEAKER_03 33:58

There's a series that we recommend to a lot of people which is the Fear Street series. It's the trilogy and that one is so underrated like we hear so little about it and we're like more people should watch it.

SPEAKER_05 34:12

We have watched those I actually watched after Kendall fell asleep last night I had to watch the new prom one and then just take your we had a lot of fun with that one too it was it's just you know it's clever and it's just like yeah it's gory but it's like funny gory like it's like oh you were awake for part of it because like that's the guy gets both of his hands cut off from the slicer thing and he's like trying to open up doors you're not supposed to chuckle but I did yeah it was and and it's yeah I thought he was asleep and all of a sudden I just hear him like Fear Street's like the goof pumps for for all the people that grew up you know I hope they keep doing them I do too they're breathing new life into those absolutely and I one thing to comment on Fear Street is the creative kills that they've come up with because I'm sure everyone in school has thought about those paper cutters at some point.

SPEAKER_02 35:11

So I'm glad that was utilized to be honest and same with the first one with the bread cutter just such creative and gruesome kills there.

SPEAKER_04 35:22

Yes I can't imagine they still have those in school I know we kind of had like we have at home office and we have one so okay I licked my finger on that it's it's not yeah I was lucky it it's so funny that this came up because last week I had to put in a new bigger sign by the one in my office because I just watch people and I'm like I don't know how this hasn't turned into a workers comp thing for me you know because I'm the HR guy.

SPEAKER_02 35:54

You know I'm like this is not I don't want to deal with severed fingers please right I used to work at the nearby community college so we had one in our office and I don't know how many times I've was walking by and I had to put the blade down because someone would just leave it up. So I know just asking for a horrendous accident to occur.

SPEAKER_05 36:23

Yeah my just make sure your blade stays on tight so your daughter's not running around the pig without that's nowhere within reach absolutely not my sign I should take a picture of it it says please lower the arm you know to keep everyone safe and then at the bottom I said no seriously should get a picture of the guy from Fear Street and put it on the exact accidents happen. Careful at work Vienna John it's been a joy meeting you and we can't wait for October for many reasons but we're very much looking forward to reading the book please stay in touch and we'd love to have you back on once we get an opportunity to read the book.

SPEAKER_03 37:04

Oh that would be lovely yeah thank you so much you guys are fun Victoria Frankenstein the Dread Legacies book one comes out October 1st pre-orders will be up shortly but for now look out for it that's it absolutely just let us know when the pre-orders go live and we'll push it out on our social we appreciate you doing that.

SPEAKER_05 37:25

And it's again it's just it's beautiful to see a couple you know creative partnering together and putting more horror out into the world so thank you for that.

SPEAKER_03 37:33

Thank you.

SPEAKER_05 37:33

It's the season that brings everyone together that's right how much do we love Vienna and John let us count the chills. I don't know what's scarier glowing I don't know what's scarier glowing juggernaut creatures or the fact that I used to run around my house with a werewolf mask scaring people. Wait, no it's definitely the fact that my dogs have better Halloween costumes than I do. So if you want to keep up with Vienna and John and you should keep your eyes peeled this October for Victoria Frankenstein The Dread Legacies Book 1. We'll drop the pre-order link as soon as it goes live. And if this episode gave you goosebumps in a good way share it with your horror fan, tag us and remember whether it's a haunted novel, a movie marathon or watching Fear Street for the 14th time, horror connects us, heals us and makes us feel a little less alone in the dark. Until next time I'm Corey, don't forget our And don't forget, when someone asks is horror good for mental wellness you tell them of course it is the Horror Heels podcast is produced and presented by How the Cow Ate the Cabbage LLC