Episode 141 - Horror on The High Seas: Creatures From the Deep

Abby and Alan continue our mega summer ocean horror series, by discussing horrifying and dangerous creatures of the deep. We cover real threats like sharks, but mainly discuss mythological creatures like Sirens, Mermaids, The Kraken and Merlions.

lunaticsproject.com

Get Lunatics Merch here. Join the discussion on Discord. Listen to the paranormal playlist I curate for Vurbl, updated weekly! Check out Abby's book Horror Stories. Available in eBook and paperback. Music by Michaela Papa, Alan Kudan & Jordan Moser. Poster Art by Pilar Keprta @pilar.kep.

Sources

• NPR article by Andy Bowers: We’ve Found the Lost City of Atlantis Again.
• History.com article by the site’s editors: Bermuda Triangle
• History.com article on Atlantis
• An article from Naval History and Heritage Command: The Loss of Flight 19
• DiscoverMagazine.com article by Tree Meinch: How Deep is the Mariana Trench and what have we discovered in its depths?
• Ars Technica article by Nate Anderson: Release the Kraken! 2,000 years of Tall Tales and a Smattering of Truth
• 2009 History.com article on the Titanic: https://www.history.com/topics/early-20th-century-us/titanic
• An article from thecollector.com 5 of the most famous shipwrecks from the ancient world: https://www.thecollector.com/ancient-famous-shipwrecks/
• New Zealand Maritime Museum article, Top 20 Sailing Superstitions 
• Thank you to April Brenker for research help, as always! 

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:18

Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Lunatics Radio Hour podcast. I'm Abbey Branker sitting here with Alan Kudan.

Speaker 2 0:27

Hello.

Speaker 1 0:27

And today we present to you part two of our deep dive into horror on the high seas, aka ocean horror in all of its forms.

Speaker 2 0:36

Can we do a quick recap of what themes were in part one?

Speaker 1 0:38

Part one we talked about the Bermuda Triangle and some of the great disappearances associated with that paranormal triangle.

Speaker 2 0:45

Of which Amelia Earhart was not one.

Speaker 1 0:47

Not one. We also talked about the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the ocean, 6.5 miles deep, deeper than Mount Everest is tall.

Speaker 2 0:55

We also talked about the Meg.

Speaker 1 0:57

We talked Alan talked about the Meg quite a bit, and we talked a little bit about Atlantis, which I think is a good place for us to pick up today.

Speaker 2 1:04

Sure, I was trying to find if there was any Atlantis horror movies. There's apparently one from the 80s like 87 or something, but I didn't track that one down. Instead, I watched Atlantis the Lost Empire.

Speaker 1 1:17

The Disney movie.

Speaker 2 1:18

Is it?

Speaker 1 1:19

Disney. Well, it was on Disney Plus.

Speaker 2 1:22

It's animated. It is animated, I don't know. I mean it was on Disney Plus. That's a good metric for it being Disney. The Disney adjacent film, at least it's just, it's such a great movie and it gets very little love nor branding for being part of the Disney franchise.

Speaker 1 1:34

The animation reminds me of Anastasia, which I don't remember. If Anastasia is Disney, I feel like it's not, but anyway, it was very cute and wholesome. And the Atlantis like mythology. I thought was pretty cool the way that Atlantis was represented visually and the people of Atlantis. I thought it was cool.

Speaker 2 1:50

It was done very tastefully.

Speaker 1 1:51

Very tastefully.

Speaker 2 1:52

The animation style is it's 2D, with like a lot of CG sprinkled in. We saw that in that era of animation.

Speaker 1 2:02

Yeah.

Speaker 2 2:03

It came out in 2001.

Speaker 1 2:04

Okay, so right behind that, yeah, it came out in 2001. Okay so, right, yeah, right behind that, yeah, and Anastasia came out in 97. So five, four or five years apart.

Speaker 2 2:11

About yeah.

Speaker 1 2:11

Yeah, not bad.

Speaker 2 2:13

I would like to see more Atlantis horror. I think it's a really cool idea.

Speaker 1 2:18

I think it's easy to do. You know, like when I think about it. Well, no, I mean, I think the script is easy to write or, like the world is easy to imagine. I don't think it's a cheap, but I really love the films and the stories that talk about mermaids as, like apex, predators, and I think that's something that could apply really well to an Atlantis horror film.

Speaker 2 2:38

Sure, I feel like that's even the softball of the softball. But think of all the lost civilization horror where it's either like south american jungles or like egyptian ruins or something like that, you know, and how they unearth a basically dead society where there's like some lingering malevolence. Yeah, you know, sure that 100 could be atlantean. I think that's super cool.

Speaker 1 3:03

Yeah, today we're pivoting from haunted geography, if you will, to horrifying and mythological sea creatures of the deep, and we're going to start as an entry point. We're going to start by talking about what I believe is perhaps one of the most famous ocean horror films of all time.

Speaker 2 3:23

About a sea creature. Yeah, can I guess? Yeah, is it sea creature. Yeah, can I guess yeah Is it Jaws, yep.

Speaker 1 3:27

When we talk about legendary creatures from the ocean, we can't help but pause on Steven Spielberg's Jaws from 1975. And it's no great leap to see the centuries of inspiration that led up to the summer blockbuster hit. It's often considered the pinnacle beach horror movie. Jaws again was directed by Steven Spielberg and stars Richard Dreyfuss. It's become a film school classic because of the brilliant decisions of its editor, verna Fields, who decided to use much less of the phony looking shark than Spielberg had shot, creating a perfectly tense build. And so this is sort of famous in film schools because the shark you know, the fake shark that they had looked really terrible and laughable. But Spielberg and a lot of the people wanted to use it because they had invested all this time and money. And so Verna Fields came in and really edited the film in a way that you don't see the shark as much, which leads to tension versus kind of seeing this, this very, you know, silly shark, which has become like a horror principle right For any horror filmmaker.

Speaker 2 4:26

If you want to learn more about this editor, you can watch Abby's short documentary on it. How do they see it?

Speaker 1 4:35

Well, if you follow me on social media, either at the Lunatics Project or Lunatics Project on Instagram and TikTok and all those places, I have some little tidbits about that history that's been posted. But let's talk a little bit about Verna Fields now. So the story of Verna Fields has been immortalized by film professors across the United States. She was an incredibly prolific editor and became known as quote Mother Cutter. She was one of the editors who worked on American Graffiti, an early film by George Lucas starring Ron Howard, and then she ended up hiring Lucas early in his career to help her edit Journey to the Pacific in 1968. In 75, when Jaws was released, it was no secret that its wild success was largely due to Verna's discerning editor's eye. Famously, the shark had looked so bad on film and production went so poorly that Spielberg thought Jaws would end his career. It's so funny to think about right, because again it's become such a important, beloved film.

Speaker 2 5:35

I feel like that's happened to a lot of filmmakers, though, where you know they release one big, expensive flop.

Speaker 1 5:41

Yeah.

Speaker 2 5:42

And you know, then the studios don't want to take another chance on them.

Speaker 1 5:45

You just have to do the Brian De Palma method of like switching back and forth between major studio flop and then indie success to kind of reestablish your clout.

Speaker 2 5:55

What would you say? Brian De Palma's biggest flop is Abby. Has like a master's on this guy.

Speaker 1 6:00

I took a whole course on Brian De Palma in film school and I have a deep love and appreciation for his work. It's not that I mean some there's certainly some flops. It's not that he's like a, you know, a flop master. It's that I think he's not a household name and I think his big studio hits are victim to a lot of studio meddling, Like. He's done a few of the Mission Impossible films, but his indie films that he really controls I just find so much more intriguing and the storytelling is so much more unique. But he's, you know, he did Carrie and I think Carrie is great. He did Body Double. He's done a lot of, you know, well known films.

Speaker 2 6:36

Carrie was the flop.

Speaker 1 6:37

No, no, no.

Speaker 2 6:39

Because that's a good one. Yeah, I think that did quite well.

Speaker 1 6:41

It did, it did.

Speaker 2 6:43

Enough to even get a carry two. Is there a carry two?

Speaker 1 6:47

For Jaws, Verna won both an Academy Award for her editing and the American Cinema Editor's Eddie Award. Less than a year later, she was appointed as a vice president for feature film production at Universal Studios, and this made her one of the first women to not only gain notoriety for editing but also to become an executive in the film industry. Verna Fields edited many incredible films. Some of her notable work includes Paper Moon from 1973, Jaws, of course, American Graffiti, of course, and what's Up Doc from 1972. And not only was she kind of a day-to-day film editor, but she also specialized in sound editing and helped with the music throughout American Graffiti, which it's really famous for.

Speaker 2 7:26

Sure.

Speaker 1 7:27

There was a period of time when mostly film editors were women.

Speaker 2 7:31

Really yeah. Now it's like the opposite, right.

Speaker 1 7:33

Yeah, so that's worth kind of diving into another time. But yeah, totally. So it's not like totally out of the blue, that she's like a woman editor, but it's out of the blue, that she got sort of notoriety for it because it was seen as a profession in the film industry that was kind of like, you know, not as exciting as production and pre-production, all these things, and and women kind of grew up in it.

Speaker 2 7:53

There are tons and tons of prolific women editors, but I still think the majority are just, you know, men, dudes that wrap themselves in their shawl and, you know, lock themselves in their little man cave.

Speaker 1 8:09

Yeah, and you know, just cut away yeah, okay, but, editing aside, I like jaws. We watched it for this episode and I was afraid to watch it for a long time because I thought that I spent so much time in the ocean and I thought that it would scare me out of that, which a little bit did, but I thought it was great.

Speaker 2 8:29

I was so pleasantly surprised with Jaws. I had seen it years and years ago, probably part of film school.

Speaker 1 8:36

Yeah.

Speaker 2 8:37

And it was okay. Generally when you watch films in that setting it's kind of hard to just like get lost in the movie. But you know, obviously it's a very famous movie, it's a very loved movie and so this time around we got to just like casually watch it. And you know it's, it's great, it's a really good movie. There's so many fun little quirky moments. I knew that it was famous for its editing and of course the editing is a masterclass and how to make something good, yeah, but besides that the story it tells is just really cool and the acting is great. And we were just laughing and laughing at Quint. Just the amount of crazy sailor bullshit he talks is amazing.

Speaker 1 9:17

Yeah.

Speaker 2 9:18

Like everyone, wants a Quint in their life.

Speaker 1 9:19

You have to have. I really enjoy. I have a very deep appreciation for horror films that are both actually scary or tense and make you laugh, and I think that it did that, which I was kind of surprised that it did. Maybe Quint isn't meant to be comedic, but looking at it now it's funny and it kind of gives you an energy. It gives a nice energy to the movie.

Speaker 2 9:41

There's no way he wasn't meant to be. I mean, maybe I don't know, but I think it was certainly embraced in the movie there's no way he wasn't meant to be. I mean, maybe I don't know, but I think it was certainly embraced in the movie. Yeah, he's such an endearing character, uh, and it's unfortunate that there's no chance he was in jaws 2 is there jaws 2?

Speaker 1 9:54

there's like jaws, at least three oh wow there's it's at least a trilogy but I'm sure steven spielberg was only involved in the. Is that such a weird thing where, like, you make this iconic film and then they make like 15 more and you have nothing to do with it? You know, I don't know, it's like John Carpenter he makes the first two Halloweens and then there's like 54 more that I'm sure he makes some money off of it or something, but it's kind of a weird thing. You just let someone take your like brainchild and run it into the ground for money.

Speaker 2 10:22

Well, I mean, yeah, for money. I mean, that's the kicker. So Jaws 2 is obviously not directed by Spielberg. It was directed by Janot Swarsbruch. Okay, I don't think I got that pronunciation correct. No, I don't think so, but it still made $208 million.

Speaker 2 10:42

Damn, and I have no idea what the budget was, but I imagine that was a profit. Yeah, cool, yeah, like this is a very typical Hollywood sequel, where maybe they throw just enough money at it for more effects, yeah, to draw in more of like what they think the audience wants, when what the audience really wants is like heart and soul in a film right but that doesn't. That's a lot harder to do and you can't just throw money to make that happen yeah so, and also does spielberg?

Speaker 2 11:14

yeah, spielberg does do sequels. Wait, does he? I don't know? Does spielberg do sequels?

Speaker 1 11:20

I'm not sure, but I some articles immediately come up about his distaste for sequels. So I would say perhaps he hasn't, and if he has, it's been rare.

Speaker 2 11:29

Yeah, I just Googled Spielberg sequels. There are so, so many sequels to his movies that he did not direct. I'm sure he's a producer, executive producer on a lot of these, looking at like the Indiana Jones stuff, right.

Speaker 1 11:45

But that's not him.

Speaker 2 11:46

Temple of Doom was.

Speaker 1 11:47

I thought that was all. George Lucas. It says that Indiana Jones was created by George Lucas but directed by either Steven Spielberg or James Mangold. Interesting, I guess the Lucas film logo at the beginning is what threw me. Spielberg and Lucas made a deal with Paramount Pictures for five Indiana Jones films.

Speaker 2 12:05

I knew there was some kind of team up between the two. Spielberg directed one through four, which was really surprising. I mean cool that he did the original trilogy, but I did not expect him to have directed the Crystal Skull.

Speaker 1 12:18

Yeah, that is interesting.

Speaker 2 12:20

But yeah, of course he didn't do the fifth. Is he still directing? I mean, I know he's producing like crazy, but he's still out there.

Shark Attack Films and Production

Speaker 1 12:27

There was also a film that I watched, similar in some ways to Jaws, called the Shallows, from 2016. And I want to talk about it just a bit, because it's a film that stars Blake Lively that, honestly, I had very little expectations for. I thought, okay, this is going to be something I put on in the background while I you know research for this, for this episode, and it freaked me the fuck out. It was so tense. The premise is that Blake Lively is a big surfer. She travels to Mexico, she's on this beach. She had to kind of like hitch a ride to get there, so the whole time it's kind of setting you up of like, okay, you know what's going to happen. And she goes out, she starts surfing and there's a shark in the waters and there's like a lot to do with like tides and blah, blah, blah. Essentially this isn't really a spoiler, but she gets hurt and she gets sort of stranded on a rock while this shark lurks in the waters around her and she's, you know, bleeding out, and so it's kind of like a race against the clock. But it's so tense and I thought, surprisingly well done, for you know, no shade to Blake Lively, but for this kind of very small budget singular actor film I thought it was was pretty good, but anyway, just another example.

Speaker 1 13:42

Right that people are afraid of sharks, especially now with all the sea life in the ocean, right seems to be turning against humanity. So I'm assuming we'll see some more killer whale orca horror films in the next few years as they keep attacking boats and things like that. But sharks have always been a bit of a thing and I also wonder like how much of our fear of sharks comes from things like shark week and jaws versus the amount of shark attacks. I know that that the shark attacks have been on the rise in the last few years, especially, you know, when you're at the beach in Cape Cod. It's quite unrealistic for the most part that a shark would just come up because shallow and the water temperature and all that. But I think we're seeing it a little bit more recently. So I think on Long Island maybe this year or last year there was some incidents.

Speaker 2 14:28

What's the shark attack statistic?

Speaker 1 14:30

It's like more likely for you to get hit by lightning on the top of a moving train or something, then Get hit by lightning on top of a moving train then get killed in a shark attack.

Speaker 1 14:40

I mean maybe According to the Florida Museum, the odds of being attacked by a shark while visiting a beach in the US are 1 in 11.5 million. The chance of being killed by a shark is even lower, at less than 1 in 264.1 million. The famous comparison is that the risk of dying from other things, like a lightning strike, a car accident or a train crash, are much higher. However, the risk of a shark attack may be higher in certain situations.

Speaker 2 15:05

Like being in the water.

Speaker 1 15:06

Swimming at dawn or dusk for one, which is interesting. I guess reduced visibility can make it harder for sharks to identify a person, so you can get kind of accidental attacks.

Speaker 2 15:17

Right, they talk about that right in Jaws on how recreational swimming is the exact type of behavior that attracts sharks.

Speaker 1 15:24

It also says, just as a disclaimer, that if you are attacked, be calm, but fighting back is more successful than pretending to be dead.

Speaker 2 15:34

Yes.

Speaker 1 15:35

Just to put it out there.

Speaker 2 15:35

Right, you're supposed to punch them in the nose.

Speaker 1 15:37

That's right, Keep them. Keep their jaw low.

Speaker 2 15:40

Or you do it with dogs and thumb right in the anus.

Speaker 1 15:42

So Deep Blue Sea from 1999 and Open Water are also kind of films in the shark attack genre. Well, we watched the first Open Water together. Open Water. The premise is that in the first one this couple are diving and the film also looks like someone made it on like a flip phone from 1994. It's bizarre. The it looks very homemade, but the premise is really good, which is that these people are kind of part of a diving excursion. They get left behind and they're just in the ocean for like 24 hours and sharks start to circle. But there was a lot that you told me about the production that I think was really interesting.

Speaker 2 16:17

First off, based on a true story of some divers that were part of a group and accidentally got left behind. Yeah, while we were watching it, I was just Googling some facts because it just seems so fun and silly. So we're pulling a lot of stuff from IMDb, but they used real sharks in the production of this, and so you know again. The premise is that they are stranded, just having to bob in the ocean Yep, no land nor boats around, and you know they have their scuba gear so they're not going to drown because you know they're buoyant. But there's sharks. They used real sharks in the production. They did have a shark wrangler and they brought some of their own sharks in for these shots. However, sharks are not domesticated animals. They're mildly trained at best, and so the way you control them is by putting chum and bait and stuff and to make them like swim in certain areas.

Speaker 1 17:13

Yeah.

Speaker 2 17:14

But they were in just open water.

Speaker 1 17:17

Right With their cast.

Speaker 2 17:18

Right, and real sharks showed up as well. I mean, they're all real sharks, but wild sharks. Yeah, that sounds like a wild sharks. Yeah, it sounds like a? Um, wild sharks, well, wild sharks. I think that's a little cause for concern. The cast had no stunt doubles, they just wore chain mail underneath their wetsuits and there was an incident right where she got bit well, sorta she got nipped, but by a barracuda, and that actually made it right into the film.

Speaker 2 17:46

Yeah, and he just makes a joke about how, like, oh, that's, that's just a barracuda taste, to give me a little taste test. I mean his delivery is different.

Speaker 1 17:56

Yeah.

Speaker 2 17:57

From a filmmaking perspective. There's so many red flags that you just shouldn't do.

Speaker 1 18:01

I also just think it's crazy that they didn't have a budget to buy like an actual camera, like they're literally using someone's like father's camcorder, but they have the budget to bring sharks in.

Speaker 2 18:10

Here's the thing. I am just going to assume that they shot this on standard def DV tape, which some very successful movies have done as well.

Speaker 1 18:20

Yeah.

Speaker 2 18:21

And yes, it looks horrible, really really bad, yeah, but it looks really bad on a modern television. So think back to 28 Days Later. It looks way worse than that 28 Days Later was also filmed on standard FTV tape.

Speaker 1 18:35

Yeah, but it looked cinematic. This looks like literally like someone's dad was filming the movie.

Speaker 2 18:40

Well, when we first started watching, we're like is this found footage? But nope, it's just bad cinematography. Yeah, but you know, like all watching, we're like is this found?

Speaker 1 18:46

footage. But nope, it's just bad cinematography.

Speaker 2 18:47

Yeah, but you know, like all the films from that era looks like that, like it stood out to us yes, is this did look particularly rough, but that said, you watch 20 days later on a modern like 4k display and you're like oh, this looks real bad, sure, but you remember it looking way better yeah because once you throw it on a dvd or a late generation vh then you know it looks fine compared to everything else.

Speaker 2 19:11

Yeah, also, like the crew was two people. There was like the, like the director and like one other person, so I don't know if the director was shooting and someone was doing sound or whatever but, like that was the crew and they just shot on weekends in free time to make this movie, right, but they had the budget weekends in free time to make this movie.

Speaker 1 19:27

Right, but they had the budget for a helicopter and for the sharks, which is the part that's interesting to me.

Speaker 2 19:37

So the shark wrangler? I'm not sure what's going on there. Maybe they I know they brought some sharks in, but like it really feels like this is the type of movie that they made because they had certain assets.

Speaker 2 19:43

Right, you know, like they just happened to own a helicopter had certain assets, right, you know like they just happen to own a helicopter. No, you know you can take like how much does it really cost to take a helicopter tour on a caribbean island? I can't imagine. It's astronomically expensive and that's just one conversation away. We're making this movie. It's a shark attack movie. I know you do tours, but like tell you what, we'll put your name in the credits and I'll give you a hundred bucks, yeah, and then you know like well, we'll let you do tours, but like tell you what, we'll put your name in the credits and I'll give you a hundred bucks.

Speaker 2 20:07

Yeah, and then you know like well, we'll let you do a cameo as like one of the extra divers. You know you want to be a movie star, like that goes so far.

Speaker 1 20:15

Yeah.

Speaker 2 20:16

And you know there's ways to hag all these things. It's not like we filmed a helicopter exploding Sure. And even if they had, that's like your buddy who has the helicopter. It's like, well, it's time let's blow it up. Yeah, yeah, uh, you know there's, there's ways around all these things, but, yes, the production value was high.

Speaker 1 20:33

Despite that, their means were very, very low but they got a bigger budget on the next one, right?

Speaker 2 20:38

yeah, I mean, the second movie was like a much higher budget production. You could just tell, but the premise is very different, which I I appreciate. Like you know, this is kind of like a Final Destination type franchise where, like you, have one, one shtick and that's people stuck in water.

Speaker 1 20:54

Yeah.

Speaker 2 20:54

How do you make that interesting? And they do a really good job. And the first one divers stranded sharks, right. Second one it's there's a yacht, they all go swimming simultaneously and because of the goof off one bonehead, they didn't remember to put the ladder down.

Speaker 1 21:12

Right.

Speaker 2 21:12

So they can't get back on the boat. It's horrifying. It is. And it's like just relatable enough, where it's like, ah, what happened, like, what a silly situation. But then you realize that like this could mean they're going to die.

Speaker 1 21:24

Yeah.

Speaker 2 21:24

As the movie progresses and I'm that like this could mean they're going to die. Yeah, as the movie progresses, and I'm sure some of them do. I'm not going to give any spoilers because it's I, I like the movie. It's not a good movie, but it's memorable just for the the situation alone. Sure, like yeah, there's a lot of like tension and blaming and like it just feels very relatable because, like, what use is pointing fingers when everyone is in life or death situation? Everyone should be working together to get out of it. Yeah, but it's human nature to be like this is your fault, fuck you, you go fix it. Like what do you want me to do? And yeah, the the second one was a lot of fun. I do recommend the entire franchise, except for the third one third you recommend the first two.

Speaker 1 22:04

Yeah, okay, the third one is pretty dumb.

Speaker 2 22:05

it's recommend the first two. Yeah, okay. The third one is pretty dumb. It's a found footage movie and the people are just so incredibly stupid Even for a horror movie. You're like come on.

Speaker 1 22:16

Yeah.

Speaker 2 22:17

The premise is they're going diving and in shark infested waters, so we're called back to the first one. But instead of getting stranded from the boat, the boat is hit by a wave and capsize.

Speaker 1 22:29

A rogue wave movie.

Speaker 2 22:31

So yeah, actually it is a rogue wave, and so then they're, just, you know, again stranded in very shark infested waters, and it goes very, very poorly.

Speaker 1 22:48

The thing that I find interesting about shark movies and I guess for the most part a lot of the movies and you know the creatures we're going to talk about today there is some roots in reality. Right, like shark attacks are a thing, despite being unlikely, they are a thing that have happened to people. And so there's this raw realness when we talk about shark attack movies that, like I think, everybody primarily can relate to right Again, even similar with, like alligator or crocodile type things. They're real, they're out there, they exist. We have a fear of them.

Speaker 1 23:12

We've watched the nature channel or whatever, and we know what they are if it's got scary teeth, it's gonna be a horror villain guaranteed right, but I also want to talk about a different kind of sea creature that has some roots in reality, but it's a little bit different. So let's start with a little bit of history.

Speaker 2 23:30

Is this Piranha no and Piranha 3D.

Speaker 1 23:33

No, those are river movies.

Speaker 2 23:36

Really.

Speaker 1 23:36

Ocean movies. Yeah, I thought Piranhas are tropical, like in the Amazon.

Speaker 2 23:41

Oh.

Speaker 1 23:42

The USS Stein was a destroyer escort ship which was later redesigned as a frigate. She was launched in 1970 and decommissioned in 92 before being transferred to the Mexican Army. The USS Stein has become famous and she has become a bit infamous because of what many call the USS Stein monster. In 1978, the ship had to unexpectedly reroute back to base after the radar system on board suddenly stopped working. After an investigation at port, it was discovered that the no-foul rubber coating of the sonar dome had been severely attacked.

Speaker 2 24:17

What is the no-foul dome?

Speaker 1 24:20

It's the rubber coating, like the protective coating on top of the sonar dome. 8% of the dome's surface was covered with lacerations and before you ask, this dome was significant in size. So 8% was quite significant. It's described in an article on iflsciencecom as almost 60,000 pounds, quoting from the official proceedings. Quote nearly all of the cuts contained remnants of sharp curved claws found on the rims of suction cups of some squid tentacles. The claws were much larger than those of any squid that had been discovered at that time. End quote.

Speaker 1 24:54

So the Navy called in a special biologist to try and understand what happened. Navy biologist FG Wood came to the conclusion that a massive squid was to blame. However, he left the door open for some other undiscovered type of creature that could be at fault, which of course kind of ricocheted into this firestorm of speculation and media right around like what giant, unknown creature attacked this boat. But the real truth of it is that even if it was a squid, the creature was so large that it was unfathomable to people at the time. According to his calculations, the length of the creature would roughly be about half of the length of the Statue of Liberty.

Speaker 2 25:33

That's long.

Speaker 1 25:34

Yeah.

Speaker 2 25:35

Although the Statue of Liberty is a lot smaller than you think.

Speaker 1 25:39

I think that really depends on what people think.

Speaker 2 25:41

Don't you think it's pretty big? I see it every day so.

Speaker 1 25:44

I'm pretty clear on its scale.

Speaker 2 25:46

Well, I always thought it was bigger. And then you see it and you're like that's bigger than I thought.

Speaker 1 25:50

It's not many, though. Though sharks are often associated with horror in the high seas, I also want to talk about some of the other terrifying legendary creatures. Like the kraken. In 2013, japanese researchers captured footage of a giant squid on film for the very first time.

Speaker 2 26:06

I remember that.

Speaker 1 26:11

It's not surprising that something we've only been able to record as recently as 2013 inspired thousands of years of folklore and mythology. And this is exactly. I think the USS Stein is such a good example of this, because even as late as 1978, a giant squid attacked a ship and people were like what the fuck creature is this right? So, of course, people in the 1700s were like what the fuck creature is this Right? So, of course, people in the 1700s were like what the fuck creature is this? You know, it took until 2013 for us to have actual video footage of it, and I said this last episode, but I think it's important to reiterate that we know less about the oceans on Earth than we do about our own solar system.

Speaker 2 26:41

But also this was a giant squid that was on camera.

Speaker 1 26:46

Yeah.

Speaker 2 26:47

Have we ever seen a colossal squid on camera? I think so. I don't know. No, we must have. I remember that was like another big thing, like they get even bigger Right, which is crazy, like they're literally twice as big.

Speaker 1 26:59

Yeah, that is. That's unfathomable.

Speaker 2 27:01

Really Well, it depends on how many fathoms we're talking about. That's right. They're what? Only very, very deep sea creatures, and it had to be like a super sick one to swim into Tokyo Bay or something, and then you can see the. I'm trying to remember which type of squid it is, but there's one that's like insanely long but not very big, Because you can see it on the. It's like that very famous clip. It's an underwater camera, it's like you know, deep sea creatures and it's just like green night vision. Look.

Speaker 2 27:34

And there's just that alien looking thing that floats back, that has, like, the tentacles that are just so insanely long, but they go to a very small body by comparison to say, you know, like a giant squid.

Speaker 1 27:45

Right, right, it's so interesting.

Speaker 2 27:47

Before being able to actually see these. You know giant and colossal animals. The best indication that they existed were on whales, because you know, I remember from my copious amounts of whale fact research that whalers would be, you know, cutting up sperm whales that they'd hunted and they would just have these crazy, crazy scars from battles with giant squids.

Speaker 1 28:11

Boats also.

Speaker 2 28:12

Oh for sure, but those are animals that go up to the surface. Sperm whales would go down to where the squids, you know, naturally reside, so presumably these are where, like the powerful ones, are.

Speaker 1 28:22

Well, I also think and this is speculation and not based in anything but I wonder if, back in the 1700s, when we first started reporting on krakens and mythology, if, because boats were so much less intrusive right and less frequent in the ocean and modernized as much, not submarines like, I wonder, if things like giant squids came to the surface more a bit than they do now.

Speaker 2 28:46

I think it's a water pressure thing. I think they're only going to come up if there's some kind of reason to Perhaps.

Speaker 1 28:52

Well, let's talk a little bit about the kraken. So the kraken, again, is a creature of mythology that for the most part, people believe was at the time an interpretation of giant squids, before we really knew what a giant squid or a colossal squid was. But it's described as similar to a cephalopod. Rumors and sightings of antiquity developed into folklore of the kraken, and so the kraken really started with Norse and Scandinavian legend. It's known to live off the coast of Norway and Greenland and it was believed to feed off of sailors. It had the power to take down ships, create whirlpools and do just about anything in its power to get delicious humans off of their boats and into its mouth.

Speaker 2 29:29

How the tables have turned.

Speaker 1 29:31

By the 1700s, belief in the Kraken was commonplace in the northern regions of the world. According to the Ars Technica article and I'll just say all of the sources for this series were in the last episode. But according to the Ars Technica article, writers like the physician Christian Francis Polinius repeated stories about the kraken uncritically, so meaning even the men of science at the time talked about the kraken as if the kraken was a real thing. Right, that was commonplace belief.

Speaker 2 29:57

I just think it's funny as the kraken not a kraken.

Speaker 1 30:01

Sure, there's only one Quoting from an 1883 book called Sea Monsters Unmasked by Henry Lee quote. So they believed that it was so big that a whole regiment of soldiers would be able to just stand on top of the Kraken right.

Speaker 2 30:26

How big is a regiment?

Speaker 1 30:27

A lot.

Speaker 2 30:28

A lot.

Speaker 1 30:29

Many Wow yeah.

Speaker 2 30:31

With their horses.

Speaker 1 30:32

That's right.

Speaker 2 30:33

That's incredible.

Speaker 1 30:33

Yeah.

Speaker 2 30:34

I think the horses would get nervous, although horses are pretty good swimmers, which is really surprising.

Speaker 1 30:39

So are deer.

Speaker 2 30:39

Yeah, I mean it's just all that. Quadruped Cats can swim too. Yeah, I've seen my cats used to swim. That's crazy.

Speaker 1 30:48

They jump in our pool sometimes did you put life jackets on them. No, that's wild. They didn't need it, I mean, we couldn't control them. They were outdoor cats, so they would just walk around the edge of the pool and jump onto your lap in the tube. If you know, they wanted a little swim and they didn't freak out no, well one. There was one cat, particularly named joey, that would come into our tubes typical joey yeah, he the best cat.

Speaker 1 31:05

You can also see the similarities between Legends of the Kraken and HP Lovecraft's Cthulhu. What you don't think so.

Speaker 2 31:12

No, why? Why? Because he's got a tentacle face.

Speaker 1 31:15

He's a giant tentacle creature from the ocean.

Speaker 2 31:17

He's got a tentacle face.

Speaker 1 31:19

Yeah, just like what's his name from, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mask of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and forefeet and long narrow wings behind end quote.

Speaker 2 31:43

Traditional representations are like kind of like a very chubby guy with huge claws, an octopus face and massive, massive bat wings. I don't picture that and think hmm.

Speaker 1 31:57

I'm just talking about giant creatures of the sea.

Speaker 2 32:00

Yeah, I mean he sleeps at the bottom of the ocean. I'll give you that.

Speaker 1 32:04

Yeah, and he's got tentacles.

Speaker 2 32:06

Or is he on the island? No, he's sleeping at the bottom of the ocean. I just remember that they beat him by hitting him with a rowboat, which is ridiculous.

Speaker 1 32:13

That is ridiculous, it's so stupid?

Speaker 1 32:16

in in the in the short story yeah, call, uh, call yeah, so he was first written about in the story of the call of cthulhu from 1928, and I mentioned this here again because I think that it is similar in some ways visually to the kraken and again because it lives in the bottom of the ocean. Since 1928 the creature has become a staple, I would say, in other types of horror and spinoffs and offshoots that are Lovecraftian. You know, it's part of D&D, for example, and I also think Cthulhu has found its way into horror legend. Do you agree?

Speaker 2 32:49

Yeah, I'd say so. I mean, it's such a common trope. I'd say it's hands down the most well-known of the Lovecraftian eldritch beings. Sure, but the thing about Cthulhu? I guess we have a description from Lovecraft, but it's really just evolved over the years.

Speaker 2 33:07

Lovecraft's descriptions are always deliberately vague because it's supposed to be unknowable. It's the type of thing where you're supposed to look at and you just go absolutely insane just by the pure appearance. What made it really click for me is how we're supposed to be able to view these. You know multi-dimensional creatures. You know, like we being three dimensions and these beings being fourth, fifth, whatever. I don't know what's passed forth, but I know there's a lot of dimensions to them. And the way that it was described is so like pretend you're you know you're Mario, right, you're a two dimensional person. And then a three dimensional hand just comes through your world. What would you see? You would just see like that sliver that comes through and like the hand, like the little cross sections of fingers that don't connect. Nothing makes sense to you from your perspective.

Speaker 1 33:53

We talked about this on our Mothman episode.

Speaker 2 33:55

Yeah, but from the perspective of you know three dimensions and just watching all this, it makes perfect sense. But being that little two dimensional person, everything is unknowable and mind bendingly crazy. Right, so the description that we have from Lovecraft is deliberately missing pieces, but that's, I guess, where the horror comes in, because you just fill it in yourself.

Speaker 1 34:21

It's just like Verna Fields and the Jaws right, that's correct. So films like Deep Rising from 1988 come to mind when we discuss the Kraken and horror Leviathan from 1989.

Speaker 2 34:27

Le Vieux Ton.

Speaker 1 34:29

Which also intersects, I would say, with the Mariana Trench horror, and we did do a very early episode on the Kraken. But there's one other topic that we also have done an episode on that I just want to briefly touch on because it's not it's not an exactly perfect fit to the topic, but I think it's worth giving it a little bit of a nod which are amphibians, like creature from the Black Lagoon and the fish man from Shape of Water. Again, not necessarily ocean horror, depending on the mythology they're typically found in, of course, lagoons, but also, going back to the original folklore that inspired them, rivers. And you can listen to our deep dive on the creature from the Black Lagoon to really understand the history there. But I wanted to say we're purposely kind of leaving it out because it's not ocean, it's something else, and we're just talking about the high seas today.

Speaker 2 35:13

I'm going to disagree.

Speaker 1 35:15

Oh, what else is new?

Speaker 2 35:17

Because I watched a new murderous mermaid movie.

Speaker 1 35:21

Well, we're about to talk about mermaids.

Speaker 2 35:23

Well it's I mean okay. Fine, you want me to wait, I'll wait.

Speaker 1 35:26

Yeah, why don't you wait?

Speaker 2 35:27

Fine.

Speaker 1 35:27

Just a few more sentences, and finally, I also want to mention Jules Verne's novel 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which is often revered for its focus on protecting the environment and its exploration of grief and other larger themes in addition to its watery setting.

Mermaids and Sirens

Speaker 2 35:43

Before we move on from the Kraken, we're not going to talk about Pirates of the Caribbean. If you want to, it's the. It's the. You wanted to talk about Davy Jones.

Speaker 1 35:51

Tell us what you think about Pirates of the Caribbean. I tell us what you think about pirates of the caribbean. I tell us what you think go ahead.

Speaker 2 35:56

No, what do you want to say?

Speaker 1 35:57

I just no no, go ahead go ahead tell us, you say your thing it jumps the shark pretty early on in the series what do you mean? It just becomes very corny and whatever. And I know that's uber popular, so sure, let's talk about.

Speaker 2 36:12

Well, it is, hands down, the best depiction of a Kraken in cinematic history.

Speaker 1 36:19

It creates that big whirlpool right in the series.

Speaker 2 36:22

No, it's a giant creature.

Speaker 1 36:24

Yeah, I know, but doesn't it also create the whirlpool that drowns the ships?

Speaker 2 36:28

No, you're thinking of Charybdis from the Odyssey.

Speaker 1 36:32

Okay, yeah, that must be what I'm thinking of. Thanks, Alan.

Speaker 2 36:35

No, the giant whirlpool is something else. That's the sea witch from, like the fourth one, or something.

Speaker 2 36:40

Yeah, yeah, I remember, but this is. It's just so freaking cool. First off, you know, you get to see giant tentacles like snap a ship in two and drag it underwater in seconds. Sure, but you also get that one really cool shot of I don't know I don't remember who we were with we're probably with Johnny Depp, but he just like goes into the water and then you just get to see the Kraken's full body for the first time. Right, and just that one shot is so freaking cool. But they really just like build up this mythos because you have Davy Jones, who we're not allowed to talk about, yet he just commands the Kraken. Because you have Davy Jones, who we're not allowed to talk about, yet he just commands the Kraken. By doing so, he commands the oceans, which is just kind of a cool notion where if you have the ultimate weapon, which is just this beast, then you are in control.

Speaker 1 37:26

Sirens are mythical beings that date back to both Greek and Roman mythology. They are described as dangerously beautiful creatures. The lore goes that they would use their siren song to attract sailors, and legend has it that often ships would wreck along the rocks surrounding their home island, the siren's home island, littered with the debris of sailors who are falsely attracted to their dangerous shores. According to Roman legend, sirens were the daughters of Phocurus and, of course, famously in the Odyssey, odysseus wanted to hear the song of sirens, but he kept safe from their entrapment. His crew tied him to the mast so he could hear the siren song, but wasn't able to jump ship and swim for them.

Speaker 2 38:05

Okay, so you made fun of me for bringing up the Odyssey, and then you brought up the Odyssey two sentences later.

Speaker 1 38:11

I wasn't making fun of you for bringing up the Odyssey. I was making fun of you that you thought. In my brain I somehow confused watching a scene from Pirates of the Caribbean to reading the Odyssey, an ancient Greek poem in my head. The mediums do not they're not the same.

Speaker 2 38:27

So I did a reread of the Odyssey like last year, yeah and I always thought it was so stupid, like why would he tie himself to the mast, Just like put the cotton in your ears like everybody else and you're fine. But it actually makes a lot of sense because, yeah, you do need someone who doesn't have stuffed ears simply to know when the danger has passed. Like I get that it's the canary in the coal mine.

Speaker 1 38:49

So one thing that kind of intrigued me while researching this episode, and we also have done it. We've done a lot of deep dives into these topics, so we do have a history of mermaids series from a while back. But I wanted to refresh my memory on the difference between mermaids and sirens, and the definition of mermaid seems to ebb and flow a bit over the years, but typically sirens are more associated with their dangerous and alluring song right. So the key element of a siren similar to the word siren right, is that they are defined by their ability to sort of trick and lure people with their music.

Speaker 1 39:23

Mermaids are more often defined as their half-fish, half-woman anatomy. Typically, mermaids were defined as mostly harmless, with the exception of a few modern examples. And of course, ancient Babylonians worshipped Enki, who was the god of ritual purification. He was known as wise and very tricky god, very susceptible to mischief. Some sources identified him as the earliest version of a mer person and others don't mention mer anything in association with him. Sometimes he's depicted with horns, usually with water flowing from his shoulders, which I think is fascinating, as if all water comes from him right, as if he is the source of all water, of all oceans, of everything, who's this guy Enki?

Speaker 1 40:05

He's an ancient Babylonian god.

Speaker 2 40:07

I was stumbling through some Egyptian mythology and apparently I can't remember his name, but it's the Egyptian god that has the alligator head and he's the god of water and rivers. Interesting. And apparently all rivers are formed because he's so sweaty and he's just sweating all the time.

Speaker 1 40:23

So, again going back to Enki, humanity worshipped him because he was the being that brings in the substance that we need to live right. Some depictions show the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers are actually made up of his semen, which I guess is similar to your Egyptian alligator man.

Speaker 2 40:39

Yeah, that's Mr Sweaty Gator.

Speaker 1 40:43

The first appearance of a mermaid as we know them today is from the Mesopotamian kingdom of Assyria around 1000 BCE. Goddess Adargades was the chief goddess of northern Syria in classic antiquity. She was called Derkedo by the ancient Greeks and Dea Syria by the Romans. The story goes that she fell in love with a shepherd who drowned in a lake. The agony was too strong to go on, and so she tried to drown herself in the lake so that she could be reunited with her one true love after death.

Speaker 1 41:14

Some believe that sirens are precursors to mermaids in mythology Again kind of piggybacking off of the evolution of this mer-person, god worship and mythology. The saying goes that no man had ever heard the siren song and lived to tell the tale. And in some mythology sirens were also the handmaidens to the goddess Persephone. Because Persephone was kidnapped by Hades, her mother, demeter, gave her handmaidens, these sirens, wings so that they could search for her. So the original sirens were actually bird women. During the Hellenistic period they changed into women with a fishtail. So that's kind of where we see that evolution between the original siren and the sirens that have kind of evolved into mermaids.

Speaker 2 41:53

Yeah, I don't really picture them as mermaids, but I understand that there's like a big overlap between the two, especially in video game enemies and in like sailor mythology and maritime folklore. Right, because you know it's usually sailors sailing towards the rock because they hear the call and they see beautiful women and then when they get nice and close, the jaws open wide and they get eaten.

Speaker 1 42:13

They're kind of like succubus in a way.

Speaker 2 42:16

Also, I did finally finish Googling sweaty gator. God yeah, and his name is Sobek and he is this big, powerful and ultra sweaty.

Speaker 1 42:26

He just looks like a buff D&D character.

Speaker 2 42:29

Yes, there is a D&D stat block for him.

Speaker 1 42:31

The root of Sirens calling out right there. Song was originally a function of perpetually calling out to Persephone in hopes that she would hear them and return home. Sirens appear in two epic Greek poems the Odyssey and the Argonautica. These poems depict Sirens as feminine creatures that lure sailors to their deaths. Both poems use different defenses against the Sirens right, against the Sirens right Again. In the Odyssey, in addition to Odysseus being tied to the mast, some of the sailors also filled their ears with bee wax to kind of drown out the song. And then in the Argonautica, they drown out the song with their own song, so they're just kind of trying to sing over them.

Speaker 2 43:09

Yeah, Orpheus does it, because you know he's Orpheus.

Speaker 1 43:11

After the Odyssey, the myth took a bit of a new complexity. It was believed that if a man survived the siren song, the sirens would need to drown themselves in the ocean.

Speaker 2 43:21

Which really contradicts the whole mermaid mechanic Right, unless they're like sharks, where they have to constantly be swimming or they drown.

Speaker 1 43:28

In Greek mythology there's also Nereids and Nereids, a Greek creation myth says that the union of Oceanus, which was a river that encased the entire world, and Tethys, the ocean, produced 3,000 daughters tasked with guarding the deep. So that's Nyads and then Nereids were similar creatures that were believed to protect fresh bodies of water like lake and streams and rivers.

Speaker 2 43:49

Yeah, there was a very clear delineation about whether they were salty or not.

Speaker 1 43:53

Yeah, some depictions of mermaids in classical art dub them as tritonesses, which I love. So let's talk about some mermaid horror films.

Speaker 2 44:01

Do you want to go first, or should I?

Speaker 1 44:03

I'll go first. Okay, there's the Lighthouse from 2019. Do you remember watching that one?

Speaker 2 44:08

Yeah, it was.

Speaker 1 44:09

The Robert Eggers movie.

Speaker 2 44:10

Yeah, he has sex with a mermaid. Sorry spoilers. Is Sex with the Mermaid? Sorry spoilers. Is that horror though?

Speaker 1 44:14

I mean, to me, the lighthouse is really a depiction of two sailors who are starting to lose their sanity, as they're, you know, because of isolation.

Speaker 2 44:22

Right, which I think is horrifying Because one it's what happens when you lock the fuck the Twilight guy.

Speaker 1 44:28

Yeah, Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe.

Speaker 1 44:30

Willem Dafoe like it's instant insanity right there instant insanity right there, this history and I have a video out on social media and, I think, on YouTube. But there's a lot of really cool lighthouse cool, I would say, and horribly tragic lighthouse history. And there's this one lighthouse particularly off the coast of York, maine, called the Boon Light. It's a few miles out and it's infamous for the amount. I think it's been like 20 something light keepers that have had to cycle through there and there's some really graphic and awful stories about kind of the madness that overtook some of those light keepers. So it's pretty common. Back in the day you really needed to have light keepers to keep ships safe, but it kind of came at the cost of those men's sanity and their wives and all those things.

Speaker 2 45:14

Got to keep ships safe of those men's sanity and their wives and all those things.

Speaker 1 45:18

Gotta keep ships safe. The other film to discuss is a Polish horror musical called the Lure from 2015, which is certainly one of the most modern examples that we have, do you?

Speaker 2 45:27

remember that movie? I sure do. That was a good movie.

Speaker 1 45:29

You liked it.

Speaker 2 45:29

It was fun.

Speaker 1 45:30

Yeah, a few other movies to mention Dagon from 2001, and also Night Tide from 1961, which stars Dennis Hopper. All right, alan, what mermaid movies did I miss?

Speaker 2 45:40

I'm sure there's many, but I only watched one. It was called Mar Negro.

Speaker 1 45:44

Black Sea.

Speaker 2 45:45

Yeah, but the English translation is Dark Sea, which is confusing, simply because trying to find this on streaming was a little tricky. However, this movie is absolutely wild. The premise is that a fishing boat accidentally catches a mermaid, but the mermaid is like creature from the Black Lagoon, looking with mermaid tail, but it's absolutely horrific, like covered in disgusting, it's like a horror creature, right, and the thing bites somebody and then takes the sickness back to the village oh interesting and it's basically a zombie movie sure but people are sort of turning into fish creatures, like it's absolutely maddening and like when you get bit, your body really transforms.

Speaker 2 46:36

It's more of dead alive. It's actually very much like dead alive. There's just an insane amount of blood and gore, like an impossible amount, but also like you can't kill these things. Even if you, like you, cut off a limb, that limb is still sentient.

Speaker 1 46:52

Sure.

Speaker 2 46:53

Also, anything like wound on the body turns into a biting mouth, so you know when they're trying to treat wounds on people. The wounds are biting the people. Trying to treat them, yeah, and then it just spreads like wildfire.

Speaker 1 47:08

Yikes, that's terrible.

Speaker 2 47:09

And again, it's absolutely wild. It takes place. This is a Brazilianian movie. It takes place in a very small fishing village 10 people in this village and they just opened a cabaret like a big cabaret, which is funny because there's like again 10 people in the village, the mayor or governor who's running for like re-election shows up.

Speaker 2 47:30

it's just absolute chaos. So yeah, the cabaret is a straight up brothel as well. There's tons of sex, tons of violence, violence, lots of fish, creatures, big fever dreams, and also it doesn't, it's not limited to just humans. So, like it spreads to the birds and the birds spread it, it spreads to all the fish, and then there's even a giant like zombie-ish whale that comes on land. It's really crazy.

Speaker 1 47:56

Wow, that sounds very chaotic.

Speaker 2 47:58

Yeah, I highly recommend this movie if you're just down for a ride.

Speaker 1 48:02

Hell yeah.

Speaker 2 48:03

And you don't mind watching something in Portuguese?

Speaker 1 48:05

No, never, Alan. Have you ever heard of a merlion?

Speaker 2 48:08

Is it what it sounds like?

Speaker 1 48:10

It's both the official mascot of Singapore and a mythical sea creature. Its fascinating anatomy somehow blends the head of a lion with the body of a fish.

Speaker 2 48:20

Okay, do you think it was?

Speaker 1 48:21

the other way around. You thought it was the head of a fish and the body of a lion.

Speaker 2 48:24

No, I was picturing a normal lion, but instead of four legs it was four mermaid tails, yeah, and it would just kind of swim around.

Speaker 1 48:33

Though Singapore is not the only geography with legends of a half-fish, half-lion creature, a sea lion get, it is also depicted in Philippine heraldry. I just thought that was interesting, I kind of stumbled upon it, and there's so much we could talk about when it comes to the ocean mythology of countries like Japan. A lot of Asian cultures have a ton here which we don't have time, unfortunately, to get into all of it, but that one kind of stood out as silly and cute.

Speaker 1 49:03

Half animals are so fun to think about, yeah, especially like what happens when they breed with other half animals. Oh wow, yeah, it's just like half sea lion, half liger.

Speaker 2 49:09

Well, think about, so you have like. This is what spawned this conversation. Picture the centaur which is half horse, half man Right. Ok, so they breed centaur with centaur. Is there a chance that the recessive genes come through?

Speaker 1 49:24

and a full horse or a full human. But it's always upper body, lower body, right. It's never like a horse head and a male's feet, so it's always like comes through one way.

Speaker 2 49:38

Well, I mean that's like the minotaur right, which is half bull, half man, because he's got the bull head and the man's body.

Speaker 1 49:45

But I'm saying, I don't know if they always in this world, where this is real, they always evolve that way. So do they even carry the genes for the feet of a man?

Speaker 2 49:54

Well, I mean. To make a full man obviously this is all not real this is all nonsense, so it's all speculation. But this got me thinking about the mantar. So here you go. Here's a picture of the mantar half man, half other man. So you know, picture a normal guy yeah but instead of a head he's got a whole other torso coming out.

Speaker 1 50:17

He's got a head.

Speaker 2 50:18

Yeah, but see, it's just like a normal person's body.

Speaker 1 50:22

Yeah, it's just put together weirdly.

Speaker 2 50:23

Yeah, it's just two humans put together in a weird way because their parents were centaurs.

Speaker 1 50:28

Yeah, sure. Well, that's funny.

Speaker 2 50:30

It's kind of cool right.

Speaker 1 50:31

Sure, I'll give it to you all right now. The time has come. Moby dick is a novel from 1851 written by herman melville. Moby dick is the name of the elusive whale that captain ahab is filled with vengeance for. The story is told to us by ishmael, a sailor aboard the p? Quad. The novel was out of print by the time melville passed away at the end of the 1800s, due to its surprising lack of success.

Speaker 1 50:56

Well, it's back, baby it began to gain popularity around 1919, when other authors, including William Faulkner, publicly praised the work. Similar in some ways is Ernest Hemingway's story the Old man and the Sea, which is about a Cuban fisherman and his unending battle with a giant marlin. All right, alan, we've said it before, we'll say it again Moby Dick is your jam.

Speaker 2 51:18

It fucking rocks.

Speaker 1 51:19

You read a lot of Moby Dick.

Speaker 2 51:21

Sure do.

Speaker 1 51:22

On repeat.

Speaker 2 51:22

Yep.

Speaker 1 51:23

Tell us more about it.

Speaker 2 51:24

What would you like to know, Abby?

Speaker 1 51:25

What is your favorite and least favorite part of Moby Dick?

Speaker 2 51:28

Oh boy, Favorite part is hands down before they even get on the boat.

Speaker 1 51:32

Okay.

Speaker 2 51:33

When you have Ishmael having to share a room at the inn with Kwee Kwee.

Speaker 1 51:39

Uh-huh.

Speaker 2 51:39

Who is only described, who's described as this like large cannibal man, sure and Ishmael has to share a room and a bed.

Speaker 1 51:49

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 51:49

But he's in the room before Kwee. Kwee shows up Like they haven't met yet I think this is the only part I've actually read. Well, okay, would you like to take it from?

Speaker 1 51:58

here. No, you're doing great.

Speaker 2 52:00

They haven't met. It's kind of getting late and so he's wondering. He's like really really nervous about like how's this going to go down? Should I just be asleep in bed already, right? Should Should I just like take this little bench and put it over against the wall and give, you know, the man the bed? Like I've never shared a bed with a man before and he's just like going through all these different scenarios like you would before a first date, and he's like really really nervous. He tries out a bunch of different things and the entire chapter is, you know him just trying to like get ready to like, please this man. This is your least or favorite part, my favorite, okay, what?

Speaker 1 52:32

ready to like, please this man this is your least or favorite part my favorite okay, what's your least favorite part?

Speaker 2 52:37

I'm not done with the chapter. And then event. You know, he eventually, whatever he eventually settles on, he eventually settles on just being in bed, uh, before kukui shows up, and so he's in bed. He's still very nervous and kukui, just, you know, comes into the room, doesn't say anything, just crawls right into bed and they kind of cuddle cute and ishmael just says it ended up being like one of the best night's sleep of his life very cute it was very cute and also rife with the homoerotic tendencies that melville has to sprinkle in throughout all of his work tell us your least favorite part.

Speaker 1 53:13

Is it the whale?

Speaker 2 53:14

the whale facts I love the whale facts. So, no, the whale facts are great, okay, but I mean, yeah, the long there's like a good chunk. I mean it's tough to say my least favorite part of that book, because there's so many bits that are just kind of not much happens in this whole block of the book, or we kind of forget that there's a main character for a while and we just kind of go off with other people, even though we're on a boat right, we just kind of forget that he's there yeah and just like some stupid stuff happens.

Rogue Waves

Speaker 2 53:42

I don't really like the early chapters with ahab before he gets like all super crazy. Once he's in crazy mode, that's awesome yeah but during the early ones, when he's just like the mysterious captain, it's good, it's just. You know, it takes a little while to get there. But, that's also that entire book in a nutshell.

Speaker 1 54:01

Right, so not a creature, but rogue waves remain one of the scariest and most unpredictable threats in the oceans. A rogue wave or a freak wave is a surface wave, different from a tsunami, which are caused by natural shifts like earthquakes.

Speaker 2 54:15

Did we have a series on rogue waves or something?

Speaker 1 54:17

no, I just really enjoy them how?

Speaker 2 54:20

why did we talk about this on the podcast before?

Speaker 1 54:22

I don't have the answer to you we have.

Speaker 2 54:24

There's no way we've.

Speaker 1 54:25

I'm just having strong deja vu of talking about rogue waves I don't know with you we've talked about in our personal life.

Speaker 2 54:31

No, yes, I mean yes, we have in in copious detail.

Speaker 1 54:34

Yeah.

Speaker 2 54:35

Like yeah, at the weekly Rogue Wave meeting, but no, what episode was that?

Speaker 1 54:42

I don't know what it would have been. I mean there's mermaids, there's creature.

Speaker 2 54:46

Haven't we done something on sea creatures before? We must have.

Speaker 1 54:49

We've done a mermaid series.

Speaker 2 54:51

That's it.

Speaker 1 54:51

And a kraken series Huh.

Speaker 2 54:53

Underwater horror. Maybe that was a whole thing. No, no, we had underwater horror.

Speaker 1 54:58

We did subterranean horror. We have not done underwater horror. That's what this series is.

Speaker 2 55:02

What did we watch underwater for in Leviathan, we watched those movies for another topic.

Speaker 1 55:06

For the Kraken.

Speaker 2 55:07

For the Kraken. Yeah, interesting, okay, continue.

Speaker 1 55:10

So a rogue wave is typically at least double the size of the other waves in the region at any given time.

Speaker 2 55:17

Sorry, just like, instead of one foot is two feet.

Speaker 1 55:20

Yeah, well, obviously can happen at different scales. You know the very famous painting, the Great Wave off Kanagawa, which is by Hokusai, which is that very famous like animated looking painting of a giant wave right, that's Japanese in its style. So that's usually thought to be a tsunami, but it's actually more likely that it's a depiction of a rogue wave.

Speaker 2 55:38

Interesting because, you know, tsunami is a Japanese word.

Speaker 1 55:41

Right, and if we strip away the rogue wave qualifier, there are a lot of movies mainly action and disaster movies that deal with big waves. So let's talk about a few of them. The first is one of my favorite films, the Perfect Storm from 2000,. Which stars George Clooney and Diane Lane. And I just have to say I was on a family vacation in Maine in the year 2000 when this came out and my family, my whole family, went to see this movie and the only seats available were the first row.

Speaker 1 56:11

We all got so sick and so scared of being in the ocean for the rest of the trip. Poseidon from 2006 tells the story of a tidal wave that capsizes an ocean liner, starring Kurt Russell and Josh Lucas, and there's also a 2015 movie called the Wave, and there's a lot to go into it, like the science behind rogue waves and why they happen, but honestly, reading it even on the most basic sources, felt very beyond my ability to understand and replicate it scientifically accurately here for you guys.

Speaker 2 56:40

So let's just leave it at that it's when all the fish team up and splash their tails at the same time oh, that's right and say fuck the humans.

Speaker 1 56:48

Fuck the humans. And just a reminder if you are enjoying our horror on the high seas series, there's much more to come, but we have a new design out in our merch shop. So if you are enjoying our Horror on the High Seas series, there's much more to come, but we have a new design out in our merch shop. So if you head to lunaticsprojectcom and click on merch, you will see our hauntingly spooky but appropriate for summer Horror on the High Seas designs, which come in the form of hoodies, tote bags, pouches for your pencils, t-shirts.

Speaker 2 57:13

Pouches for your pencils.

Speaker 1 57:14

That's right, I like a little pencil pouch. But check that out. We are incredibly proud of it and it's designed by our very talented friend, pilar Kep. As always, thank you guys so much for being here. There is so much more to come. I'm very much loving this series and it's very fun to be able to record and research something. So, summary, I really have found that I do love seasonal horror. We'll be back soon. Stay safe, stay spooky, goodbye.

Speaker 2 57:40

Bye.