Are you interested in angels, demons, spirits, ghosts, and monsters? Are you curious about their origins, tales, and influence upon history any on the present day? If so, sit back, relax, and welcome to Seven Demonology, the podcast that explores all of this and more.
Hello everyone. Welcome back to Southern Demonology. And as always, I'm JJ. So we've been talking about some heavy topics as of late. So I wanted to slow it down a little bit for this episode and kind of have a few different areas to discuss. But the first one is one of my favorites to talk about. And it is what makes an effective horror something? It could be a movie, it could be a novel, it could be a horror short. And the best way that I can think of putting it is that effective horror is one that alters your perception.
Unless we're dealing with what I would classify thriller horror, you know, one in which involves things that could happen in everyday life. You know, the mundane, whether it deals with, you know, a killer breaking into your house or being assaulted or something along those lines. That is stuff that we've seen on the news time and time again. But if we're dealing with supernatural horror, in order for that to get under your skin, it has to be able to latch onto you. It really does need to alter your perception or shock you out of your normal worldview.
Because for it to get to you, in order for you to be scared, it needs you to believe. And it doesn't have to be wholeheartedly. Now, if you are a horror movie or novel or just genre novice, then it's quite easy to do that. All all it needs is to show a little bit of gore, maybe the cheapest tactic in the world, a jump scare, and it can get to you. But if you've been a veteran of horror movies, then it's really hard to get scared. You know, jump scares can get to anybody, but they are momentary and even cause resentment. So they're not really an effective vehicle.
However, if a movie can convince you that A it could happen. Or B layer on top of your normal worldview, a slightly alternate one. Now the first horror movie that I ever saw is probably one of the worst that's ever been made, and I actually haven't heard word of it since seeing it when I was in gosh, fifth grade, sixth grade, something like that. Um it was called Monster in the Closet. I may have actually have talked uh spoken about it before, I don't really remember, but it was awful.
Um I mean it was more of a comedy parody than anything else, but as a kid, if you see a giant monster popping out of a closet, it's gonna it's gonna get to you just a little bit, and this one certainly did. But since then and I've clocked in, you know, hundreds, if not thousands, of hours watching uh, you know, horror videos, movies, whatever it may be, that easiness has been ripped away. And I can honestly say that I probably have only been scared a handful of times. One of them being the very beginning of the Dawn of the Dead remake.
And it the whole movie in itself is pretty atrocious except for the visuals. The visuals are really well done. But it was the scene where everything initially goes to hell, where you have a quiet suburb that within the span of a minute, two minutes, dissolves into absolute chaos. That got to me more than anything that I had ever seen up to that point. Honestly, it was under my skin so much that for weeks after I would open the door and peek out just to make sure that there were no zombies running around trying to bum rush me um as I was obliviously walking to my car.
And you always wish that you could get that feeling back that, you know, it would be really easy to to fall back into that mindset where it was so easy to accept that yes, this very well might happen. And unfortunately, if you're used to it, it's not quite that easy. But it is what it is, unfortunately. But so few movies actually even attempt to do that. You know The Exorcist, um, the version that you've never seen is another one.
Now, the original Exorcist, I've seen it, didn't faze me, thought it was a really well done movie, um, made slightly freakier by I actually used to live not four blocks away from the famous Exorcist Stairs in DC and would actually go visit it every once in a while just to say, Yep, I've been there, that's pretty cool.
But it was the revised version that came out, and it's literally called the version you've never seen, where they put in a whole bunch of um of extra footage that had been chopped out of the original, and they actually like show flashes of the demon's face uh throughout certain scenes of that movie. For some reason that amped up the believability, and it actually g got me frightened the first time that I watched it. Cause uh it was something about the demon's visage, and yes, it was just a person in makeup, you can obviously tell, but the way it was so starkly done.
Solid black uh backdrop with just this thing's face revealed for a split second. Something about that was so effective that you know it it was quite difficult to fall asleep that one night. And outside of those two occasions, I can't really think of another movie that has been really effective. Actually, I'll give you one piece of trivia. The demon uh that is depicted in that movie, at least the the statue at the very beginning, it isn't really a demon. That dem that statue is actually one of Pazuzu, uh and Pazuzu, although he looks hideous, is not actually a scary demon at all. It was a god.
So anyway, uh enough uh random sidebar trivia stuff on that one. Um I think that's why I've started gravitating more to the horror TV series and to the horror shorts that you find on any, you know, video platform like YouTube, etc. Because they take very interesting approaches to things. On the TV side, you're able to build a world, a world view. They have time to flesh out all of the details, and the more that you find yourself falling into those details, that is one way for it to actually attempt to create a worldview that you are participating in, even if it's for a second.
And the moment that you are a participant there, that is when it can try to truly influence you and be a horror film. And one thing that one show that actually did this extremely well that I highly recommend, uh, if you have Netflix, go watch Juan Origins. It was just released uh I think last Friday. Oh my god. So the original Juan, which in English roughly translates to cur uh the grudge, um features a house that is highly disturbed. Uh at least has three spirits in it, the most famous of which is the mother Kayako and her son Toshiki.
And anyone who visits this house carries this curse along with them, and they either die immediately in the house, or God forbid, if you actually live there, uh, or it follows you. The movie, if you haven't seen, is actually one of the best Japanese horror movies that there are. Um now, unfortunately, it along with another famous movie, The Ring, um, have spawned absolutely atrocious sequels. Uh, they even well there even was a parody, well not a parody, but uh a sequel that showed both um Sadako from the Ring versus Kayako from The Grudge.
And there is actually another Sadako versus Kayako, but that Kayako is complete uh it was one of the two, I forget which one, uh, but it was a completely different spirit. So it it just tried to capitalize on the name, even though it had nothing to do with those two original franchises. Um however they were all horrendous, and there was a so the original Grudge was you know made into a uh a US adaptation and it was pretty horrible. I mean, it was just a a blatant crash uh cash grab.
Um and then there was a um another like prequel that came out last year, I think it was, or where maybe it was the beginning of this year, and it too was supremely whole drum. And when I got the notification that, hey, you know, Juan Origins is coming out on Netflix, I thought it was that prequel movie that had come out in the US. So I'm like, yeah, I've been kind of interested in seeing it, so why not? And lo and behold, it is not the prequel, it is an actual TV series, six episodes, 30 minutes each, that delves and creates this worldview. It actually, oh, it it is so so well done.
I I I cannot recommend this one highly enough. And not only does it try to establish a worldview, but it also intermixes just shocking gore, not excessive, but it it does it at such strategic spots that it the whole thing is just completely masterful. Highly recommend it. Please go check it out. Um and the other thing I was listing were horror shorts, and these short videos they have to come to a point extremely quickly. In fact, the vast majority of them, or at least I would say, you know, a majority of them, doesn't even have spoken dialogue.
They are simply there to drive home a point, and that's usually, you know, an interesting idea or a gimmick or something else, but and that's all that they have to go on, but the videos are only you know a handful of minutes up to maybe 20 or 30 minutes, so it's not like they have you know a whole lot of time to to stretch that gimmick out. It's they're only as long as they need to be, at least the good ones. Um sometimes they don't even depend upon language to get their point across.
But there are such a good variety of them, um, whether they be you know horror comedy or just pure jump scares or something else, there are some phenomenal varieties out there. Uh actually I just posted up on the uh Facebook group, um not group, on the Facebook page for Southern Demonology tonight, a link of I think it's currently at 142 videos of ones that I found to be you know pretty effective or ones that I found to be extremely interesting. And if nothing else, hey, in this pandemic, it's always good to kill time.
The next thing I wanted to talk about is actually an introduction to a new series that uh I'm going to be uh starting on this podcast, and it's a community member highlight. The best part about being able to do this show is meeting all of the wonderful people that you know interact on Facebook, send contact messages to our website, whatever it may be. Um, and even now on our Discord channel, uh being able to you know have some more in-depth conversations with each other, it it has truly been a blessing.
So for all of y'all who have you know contacted me, who you know, we've exchanged emails and had conversations on the phone, whatever it may be, thank you all. It's been truly an honor to to be able to talk to so and meet so many different people. But um uh Josh uh or as he is known on um on Discord, his username is Listen, uh he reached out to me and we began talking, and it's ProFootball is back, and so are the predictions.
But anyway, I wanted to ping him uh to be the first member of a of our new community highlight section. Uh, because he really has done a lot uh in helping out the Discord, and not only did I want to thank him publicly, but also give him a chance to talk about himself a little bit. So uh the rest of this is going to be a uh a brief interview. I did want to clarify one other thing before we get got into that. Um last time we I did do an interview uh with Jennifer uh Abald about the Ethiopian Jewish diaspora, and I had said that it was my you know first interview.
And so, yes, it is my it was my first time giving an interview uh for this podcast. Uh but in f you know terms of full disclosure, um I've been doing interviews for the past ten years. Um it's just never been about these topics or anything even remotely about that. Um I've been a you know doing uh I have served as a hiring uh manager um for IT for about a decade now. Um I've you know kind of specialize in building developer teams up, uh starting entire programs off on the ground, etc.
, in addition to you know being a a solutions architect and a a lead developer and all that kind of good stuff. So I have conducted you know probably a thousand developer interviews but you know those are usually highly controlled uh situations in which I know all the questions I know all the topics uh and here you know this has not been the case I've been able to come up with questions but yet you know I'm reliant upon others to share their experiences or their detailed knowledge about a particular topic.
So in that regard I am an absolute novice so please forgive my lack of interview real life interviewing skills I guess you could say but anyway uh please listen in to the rest of this conversation uh josh's internet connection is not the strongest so uh you may hear some echo or or reverberations every once in a while um however he's a fascinating guy and if you would like to talk to him or to me or to anyone else or you know join in some of these detailed conversations that we're getting to have then I welcome you to join our Discord or send me a message or do whatever you else you like it would be great to be able to meet you.
So anyway sit back relax and listen to the rest of this community spotlight interview with Josh thank you very much excellent so why don't you introduce yourself quickly my name is Josh Breadland Oklahoma there may be two three hundred people live around here pretty nice and quiet enjoy the country life very nice uh how did you get interested in the topics that we discuss in the podcast well everybody hears ghost stories and stuff when they're kids you know about monsters demons stuff that's gonna come get you in the night you know I was just I always loved hearing those stories and then what really sparked my interest in the paranormal and and everything similar is when I seen ghost busters.
It just hit me like oh man ghosts, demons, everything else like the coolest thing ever and then as as I grew older and it just stuck with me. You know, got into playing video games and stuff, uh Diablo being probably my all-time favorite game just kept feeding fuel through the fire. You know I'm a big fan of Dan Ackwoy too he's a big believer in the occult paranormal um studied it a lot when I was in high school I guess that's what typical teenagers do. At least around here country um internet in the nineties is a lot different than than it is today. Yeah.
Uh I read a lot about Wicca and Druidism and everything related uh watched a lot of biblical documentaries. Just I just can't get enough that's awesome.
Yeah in fact you're the one who sent me a link saying that Dan Accord has a new horror series or something like that on Travel Channel?
Yeah it's supposed to be about paranormal I'm I'm not a hundred percent sure what all it entails because they haven't released a lot of information about it.
Yeah we're gonna have to check that one out that sounded awesome have you ever experienced anything supernatural or pertinatural yourself?
Uh well I have a couple short stories one of them I was in high school doing a book report and our teacher she was our English teacher making some of these reports me and her did not get along um she was of the holiness religion and me being a smart elect I was like I'm gonna do my report over Satanism just the spider so yeah I was one of those kids um so I'm sitting there looking up stuff about Satanism and Anton LeBay and had my mind blown that his Bible is on the cover of an Eagles album that that tricked me out.
But my brother sitting right beside me playing video games on his computer and then our clock had like a metal bar clock on the wall and just start swinging back and forth back and forth scraping the wall um this is about 12, 1 o'clock in the morning and even my grandparents up from their room when they come to see what was going on. You know told them like looking at this satanic website clock started moving and they said well I think you need to turn it off yeah never looked at that again ever I can't explain it.
Don't know what it is I'm not using believer that the devil or demon or something shook that clock or something did. We don't really have earthquakes all that much around here um the other kind of supernatural story me and my buddy name is Kyle uh we were watching paranormal shows watching you know talk to the ghosts with the EMF recorders and stuff like that. Well we're teenagers and we're dumb so we just grab any voice recorder we can we drive to the local cemetery and we're just walking around and asking questions and stuff.
We start hearing something walking around so it kind of startled us with saying it could be a bobcat or something. We definitely don't want to get caught around one of those but we jump on our full oars head back to our house and we played the tight mat and there was a distinct voice on there that said get out really yeah it was like it was gurgling and whispering but we didn't hear it while we were there some interesting EVP stuff right there.
Yeah and it was just a plain old I mean you can hear us goofing off and everything here stomping around starting toilers and when we played it back we heard that and it's like man that's crazy. Yeah that would have sent chills down my spine that's it that's really my only two besides being a young kid seeing the shadow people but I don't know.
That could be in my imagination too shadow people Yeah they just usually whenever I would go to bed it just looked like there were shadows walking around in my room huh never thought much about them you know so every once in a while I'm contacted about strange stuff and those have been popping up in my email boxes more and more and more it's uh yeah it's a little frightening explanation on those nah no I have no bloody idea um it's something I'm gonna start looking into but yeah I have besides some of the stuff that like cursory things that I've read I I have no explanation whatsoever um so would you care to explain how we met uh well I just started looking for a demonology podcast I've never been a big podcast listener um picked up a couple of retro video game podcasts and I was like yeah I could listen stuff about you know biblical history demonology paranormal and I typed in demonology and this is the first thing that comes up so started listening got real interested had a Facebook and you know a website contacted you through there and you were really cool and responded so then it just seems like our friendship has just grown since then heck yeah it has I gotta tell you um the reason I wanted you to be the first member um i in this spotlight is you know you contacted me said hey you know happy to do however you know whatever I can to help and that just touched me like just right then and there because you don't normally get those you know offers of assistance and you know since then you joined the Discord group you've been probably the most active member that we have by and far always trying to you know see how people are doing and you've offered tons of great suggestions and I just wanted to say thank you for everything for the friendship for everything that you've done for you know the show and for me and everything else I just thoroughly appreciate it it's been a pleasure the whole way I'm just glad you're still doing the show.
Heck yeah and I got a great friend out of the deal so I'm tickled to death everybody wins you got that one right um so how have you been uh coping and getting through the pandemic well I work retail um so business as usual for me for the most part we have to wear masks and I usually wear one 10 eleven hours a day um it did make my job a little easier at first because my hours got changed to where I went in between like nine and work till eight which was really really nice but now that that's over and we're staying open later because in Oklahoma we're opening back up even though the virus is still spreading so that's pretty concerning.
Um but nobody related to me has caught caught the COVID 19 yet which I'm very thankful for.
I got a few friends that have it I think we lost you just for a minute last thing we uh I heard was Oklahoma Oh in Oklahoma we're opening everything back up so some businesses are staying open later and more of them are open like all our salons and stuff are open uh my store specifically went from staying open until eight o'clock to staying open till ten now oh wow everything everything here except for certain grocery stores shut down strictly at eight o'clock so yeah they they didn't even shut the lakes down at all here I was working we'd have people coming driving up from the lake the lake's about probably a 45 minute drive from where I work that they were driving up there to get supplies and stuff throughout the whole thing I I just hope that you're staying safe I know you're an incredibly intelligent person so I have no doubt about that but still I wish you all the best in that my friend yeah I think we'll be okay uh we don't really go anywhere I don't particularly like going anywhere anyway yeah I hear you on that one I've been embedded in my basement for longer than I can recall so um are there any episode topics that you'd like to hear discuss in the upcoming shows uh yeah uh a couple actually um maybe uh some top like name demons specifically you know like Asmodaeus or Abaddon or Melial over any of the name demons specifically or uh maybe about the seven devils or the seven sins that'd be a pretty good one too oh that's a great those are great ideas I would definitely I've been definitely wanting to do that we've touched on some of the name demons especially like Belial in our Discord um so but yeah I I will I would definitely do that.
Thank you for that oh you're welcome all righty anything else that you wanted to talk about before we go uh no just uh I hope you know you keep doing the shows and everything keeps going successful because man I love listening to them and I appreciate the opportunity to be on here not just chatty and actually just oh sorry I'm just nervous oh no worries uh man I'm a little nervous as well so like the big deal all right my friend thank you for agreeing to do this this was fantastic and it's been great getting to know you and looking forward to continuing to get to know you in the future so yeah I just get funnier over time I think we all do at least that's what I tell myself I don't know if it's actually probably well it's been a pleasure well I hope you enjoyed that interview I had a lot of fun getting to speak with him uh it's not my first time but you know anyway um we I do have um uh one or two more of these into the pipeline uh with everyone's schedules being so chaotic uh due to the pandemic I'm not quite sure when I will get those up and going uh but I uh so this won't be every single time of course but um you know I I think it's always good to hear from others you're not just hearing my strange ideas all the time but rather you're getting to hear from you know everyone else and get a variety of different voices and perspectives into the matter which you know means everything in the world the the more that we know the more that we experience then the better off we are as people so and again thank y'all very much for joining us I really appreciate the continued support as always uh reach out to me on Facebook uh with the URL of facebook.
com slash southern demonology you can also reach us on our website which is southerndemonology.
com we have contact buttons on both places so uh feel free to reach out and most importantly um feel free to join our discord channel uh we're a small community but we're growing uh we have some really interesting uh conversations there and especially if you have questions or something that you know doesn't quite fit so well into an email then it's a great avenue to be able to you know share a one-on-one or as a group so thank you all I hope you're doing well uh in this pandemic staying safe and until next time have a good night this has been Southern Demonology please feel free to contact us at southerndemonology at gmail dot com we hope that you join us again for our next episode ProFootball is back and so are the predictions trade yours on CalCA America's number one prediction market platform indie takes on Kansas City with Indy currently trading at 28% to win a $100 trade pays out $336 if they win.