Surviving the Night with Author Will Rogers

Episode Transcript
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James Jay Edwards (00:24):
Welcome to Eye On Horror, the official
podcast of eye horror.com thisis episode 144 otherwise known
as season eight. Episode Four.
I'm your host, James JayEdwards, and with me, as always,
is your other host, JacobDavidson, how you doing? Jacob,

Jacob Davidson (00:41):
doing fine. It's just another very gloomy,
cloudy, rainy day in California.
It

is coming down, and it has not given us
enough of a break for the dogsto go out to do their thing. So
I'm a little afraid that wemight have, that we might have
accidents in the house. Butthat's my problem. Not anybody
else's also with us. As always,is your other other host, Jon
Correia, how you doing Correia?

Jonathan Correia (01:06):
Doing great, and sorry for for making the
Greta joke. Greta leaving pursesall over. Jay's new dog is named
Greta, so I had a reference tothe to the movie,

yeah, and the purses are huge. What's what's
been going on? The big newrelease this week that I did
see, and I don't have either youguys seen Novocaine.
I saw it well, they had previewscreenings about last weekend,
and I saw it Monday, so I wasactually a little late to the
party on it. But this is thatthe Jack Quaid movie that is,

(01:45):
um, he plays a character. It'sactually, I love the gimmick. He
is Nathan Kane, and he doesn'tfeel pain. So His nickname is
Novacaine, and he and it's areal condition, something where
your pain receptors get blockedor something. But anyway, he
can't feel pain, so his he were,he's a assistant bank manager,

(02:08):
and one of his tellers, who he'skind of has a crush on, actually
jokes. She's like, You're asuperhero, and she's played by
Amber Midthunder from Prey,but she there's a robbery at his
bank, and and of course, he getsthe shit beat out of him, and
you know, but he didn't feel it,but he does get knocked
unconscious, and when he wakesup, she has been taken as a

(02:31):
hostage so that these robberscan get away from from the
police. And of course, hebecause he likes her. He makes
it his mission to go after andrescue her. He even says several
times, I don't care about themoney you can keep all the money
you've got. I just want you knowher name's Sherry, so I just
want Sherry back. And this, thismovie is, I wish it was more

(02:52):
fun, honestly, because there's alot of humor in it that mainly
derives from him not being ableto feel pain, like these guys
are beating the shit out of him,not realizing that he can't feel
it. And there's one scene, whichis actually in the trailer,
where he's being tortured, andhe's using it to buy time,
because, you know the the guy isgoing to kill him, but he

(03:15):
figures out a way to make theguy torture him first so that he
doesn't kill him right away. Andhe's like, doing all these
things. So how's that feel? Andhe's acting like it hurts, but
he doesn't know what pain feelslike. He's Oh, oh, no, don't do
that anymore. Oh, it's like, theworst acting on it. But so
there's some humor like that.

(03:37):
But other than that, just kindof and by the third act, it just
evolves into like, you know,rock them, sock them, punch out.
So you're like, you know, I wishthat they had leaning. I wish
that they had made it more fun.
I wish I wanted The Beekeeperand, you know, you got more,
like, Taken, you know, so

well you have A Working Man coming out soon.
So, yeah, I'm

expecting the same thing from that, but for
different reasons. Um, the funthing, there are a couple fun
things about Novocaine that arecool. Is one, it was filmed in
San Diego, so I got to see,like, you know, it basically,
there's a lot of cool stuff thatI recognize being down here. And
they made some in jokes aboutthe chargers and the clippers
and the Padres and so, you know,it's kind of funny. But the

(04:23):
other fun thing is, they showedit to us, to the press, in four
dx, which the only thing I'dseen at this point in 4Dx was
Godzilla King of the Monsters.
And Godzilla, King of theMonsters was an awesome movie
for 4Dx because not only did theseats move, but it used like the
wind and the rain and all thatstuff. Yeah, Novocaine wasn't
really the the right movie for4Dx because, I mean, it was kind

(04:44):
of fun during the car chases. Itfelt like you were in the car,
but it they were, like, using itduring the fight scenes and
trying to, like, you know, throwyou around. And it wasn't. It
was kind of distracting. Andthere's one scene where the
guy's at a bar and a guy comes.
Behind him and taps him on theback. And, of course, it hits
the back of your seat, andyou're like, the fuck was, you

(05:07):
know, it's like you thinksomeone's kicking your seat, is
what, you know. But there is onecool part where he where he
shoots a guy in the head and andthe little spray thing hits you,
so you feel like you got hisblood. That was, that was
probably the coolest thing onthe 4Dx but, yeah, it was 4Dx

A not all 4Dx experiences can feel like the
Alien Encounter at Disneyland inthe 90s.

Extra Terrestrials, yeah?

Or Honey, I Shrunk the Audience. Do you guys
remember

that one? Yeah, that was a fun one too.

Alien was better. Oh, actually, I didn't
even mean to do this, butspeaking of 4Dx movies, there's
been this hole in my Joe Dantefilmography viewing that I
finally filled this past week Itracked down it was watermarked
as shit, but I've tracked down acopy of Joe Dante's the light

(06:03):
haunted lighthouse, 4d

Yeah, the R L Stein thing, they showed that at
Disney or at Sea World. Yeah, wewere discussing that at
Novocaine, because I could havesworn, Honey, I Shrunk The
audience was at Sea World. Ikind of we didn't make a bet,
but I lost that argumentbecause, honey, I shrug. The
audience was Disneyland and theSea World. One I saw was, was a

(06:27):
haunted lighthouse. Yeah, thatwas

such a weird movie. It's directed by Joe
Dante, written by R L Stein, ashe said, It's got Christopher
Lloyd as, like, the kind ofHarbinger, like Seaman there,
Leah Thompson and Michael McKeanplay the two go to the two
parent ghosts. And then there'sthese two kid ghosts. And one of

(06:50):
them's, like the kid actress,who was, I think she was Samara
and Lilo and and Lilo andStitch, I don't know. It was
just like a stacked cast. Yougot Joe Dante. It's super over
the top. There's like, weird,very Joe Dante bits where, like,
the kid ghosts are, like, can'tyou tell where it goes? And the
kid, like, takes off his headand it like, floats forward the

(07:11):
it was really weird. But like,you know, it was story about
this, you know, these family thetheir boat is going to crash
into the thing. So the kids hidein the lighthouse, and the the
parents die, and then the kidsget taken by a wave, and so
they're haunting the thing, andthey just want to be reunited
with their parents. But it endswith the most random bit, like

(07:34):
the ghosts become a like touristattraction after, because it's a
happy ending. And then, like,the ghost boy is like dancing in
the background, but he's like,green screened into dancing in
the background. And it's themost random. And I had this like
moment where I thought I washigh because, like, it was
happening, and Lindsey had noreaction to this. And before I

(07:55):
could say, do you see that kiddancing there? Weird. Al shows
up as the waiter. Um, and I waslike, What the fuck. And then
all sudden, they green screen,this kid, this kid doing the
most random dance, but likesideways on, like the right side
of the thing, like parallel. AndI was just like, What the fuck

(08:16):
just happened? And then it goesthe end. So, yeah, I can't, I
can't I, I can't believe I'msaying. I wish I had gone to Sea
World and seen this in 4Dx hegot thing, yeah, if

you, if you had 3d glasses on, and we're
seeing it, you know, with 4Dx itwould have made a little more
sense. But, yeah,

not seeing it on YouTube with the water in
like, 320

Yeah, but that watermark is probably in
3d, two, if you had the glass,you know,

maybe a book, yeah, that was a weird one. That
was, that was like, All right,cool. Now I can check that off
my Joe Dante filmography. Now Ijust got to find, you know, The
Movie Orgy, that screening ofthat somewhere when I have three
hours to spare.

Options, options, options, yeah,

no, but I love watching ride videos that were
used to be in there. Shrek 3Dwas a favorite of mine as a kid,
so like, used to watch that DVDall the time. And then the other
weird one that I watched adiscovered resheet recently was
this. It was a public safetyvideo meant to teach British

(09:25):
children not to play around farmequipment. It's called Apaches
Yes,

Apaches. I love Apaches. Yeah. It's

about these seven kids who are playing
pretend. They're pretendingthey're, you know, cowboys and
Indians and that they bouncebetween sides it, but they're
mainly playing as Apaches. Ifound it because it's on Edgar
Wright's top 1000 movies, or1000 movies to watch. And I was
like, What the fuck is this1970s Apaches movie? I looked

(09:55):
into it. It's from the samedirector who did The Long Good
Friday. I. And boy, howdy, wasthat special, Was that fucking
amazing? It's, it's, it's filmedDream like, but it really Jay
and I were talking about beforewe started recording its final
destination.

It totally is. It's like they're playing
around this farm equipment, andthe farm equipment, it doesn't
really come to life, but they'rethe most random accidents that
you're like, Was that really anaccident, or did they just get
murdered by that Baylor? It's,it's

28 minutes of this group of kids just being
picked off one by one, like, thefirst, like, at first, it goes
on for like, five minutes.
They're just playing Apache, andthen all sudden, this kid,
they're like, he's on a tractorbed, and he takes a dinger off
and gets run over by thetractor. And then it's like,
from there on, it's just like,boom, ba, boom. Like, kid
getting knocked off. And theykeep playing. And you would
think after like, one or twothey would stop doing that, but

(10:52):
like, no, they kept going untilthere was one left, and he,
like, jumps on a tractor andaccidentally, like, kicks off
the brake and like, goes off theside of like a hill with it.
It's just like Jesus. And it'slike, 1200 children died in
farming accidents last year. Andit's like, yeah,

if they play Apache like that, yeah, I first
saw Apache because it was on alist. I want to say it might
have been cracked.com but it wason a list of basically what you
said, like these, you know, themost horrifying public service
announcements. And you can findit on YouTube, and it is, I
mean, looking back on it withtoday's eyes, it's hysterical.

(11:40):
But if you consider, I mean, ifyou were a kid in the 70s and
you saw this on TV, Yeah, whoa,nightmares,

I could just imagine, like, because it's also
something that they would showin schools, of like, Hey kids,
this is real serious. And then,like, there being like, a couple
of like, monster kids in thebackground, just be like, This
is awesome. Whoa. Like, it'swell done, but it's,

yeah, no, I would say I think it was a found
footage festival for everythingis terrible, and they played
that along with some otherBritish, British and European
PSAs. It meant that they did notfuck around with PSAs in Europe,
because there's also, like, thisGerman one, I think it's called
safety last and like, oh yeah,it was about forklift safety.

(12:28):
And, like, dudes get impaledwith forklifts. And, yeah, they,
they really want a hammer that,you know, real accidents had
real consequences in theworkplace, or, you know, around
farms and stuff,

there's a, there's a whole series of
commercials where, like, there'sone where there's a chef working
in the kitchen, she, you know,and she's like, Oh, hi, I'm
getting married this weekend.
It's gonna pop up. And she'slike, but none of this is gonna
happen, so I'm about to have aterrible accident. And then she
slips, and this pot of boilingoil spills all over her face,
and you're watching this, andyou're like, I did not expect

(13:03):
that turn.

Oh, man, I remember that one. There's a
whole

series of them like that, where you watch
these terrible accidents happen,and you're like, Whoa, you know.
And it starts off with just thisnormal, you know, hi. Meet the
you know, meet this person.

There's also some, like, the there's forklift
PSAs, where they actually hiredlike, special effects makeup
people and like, it's just likepeople just getting, like,
skewered by forklifts and allthis stuff, like they wanted it
to look as real as possible. Andthose are, those are great
compilations to watch, too.
Yeah, gnarly. PSA videos arealways a blast, but Apaches is

(13:43):
diff is, like, next level, likeit's, it's so well shot, and it
just comes off, almost Dreamlike, it's definitely feels like
a fever dream with, like, justchildren getting dingers and
knocked off. Like there's onekid that drowns in poo like I
it's very ethereal. But yeah,that, that was a that was a good

(14:05):
time

in terms of new releases, and don't, I don't
think there's been a lot of newhorror, but I did see The Rule
of Jenny Pen at Alamo a coupledays ago, and it's pretty
intense, pretty solid. Have youguys heard of it?

I've heard of it, but I haven't seen it. Is
it's gonna be on shudder, right?
Yeah, it's

gonna be on shudder on the 28th it's got,
like, a short theatrical runright now. It's basically about
Geoffrey Rush as this judge, whohas a stroke and he ends up
partially paralyzed, and he'sput into this nursing care home,
and he's a bit of a misanthrope,and he's kind of kind of

(14:53):
adjusting. But the thing is, is,turns out at night, John Lithgow
plays the. This seeming dementiapatient who always has like a
weird little baby doll puppet onhis hand, and he loves to just
physically and psychologicallytorment the other residents in

(15:13):
this old folks facility. And soit becomes kind of a
psychological game of wits,because he wants to try and
break Jeffrey rush, and he'sjust tormenting him, and it's
kind of a lot of back and forth,and it was very solid. You know,
the most surprising thing to metoo is that it's set in New
Zealand, so they both have NewZealand accents for the movie. I

(15:38):
love

it when Lithgow does gore and creepy
stuff, like his De Palma filmsare some of my favorites. Oh
yeah, no. It definitely feelslike

he's evoking that. I'm not going

to be able to look at Lithgow anymore without
seeing disappointed Lithgow facefrom the why they didn't cut to
that during Adrian Brody'sspeech. That's a missed
opportunity, right there. Theydefinitely should

have, I thought you're gonna say without
picturing John Lithgow slappingHarry in Harry and the
Hendersons get out of here. Nomore. What is?

What is hagsploitation called? When
they're not hags when they'rewhen they're geezersploitation.
Geezersploitation?

Yeah, no, it was basically like Bubba Hotep,
instead of a soul sucking mummy,it's a psycho John Lithgow with
a puppet.

Sold, yeah, old sold. That is, that is,
yeah, that is a tagline to getme to go see that. Hell yeah.
Have

a have either you guys seen Mickey 17? Not yet
seeing it this weekend. I'm kindof conflicted with it, because
it's a, it's a great movie.
It's, I mean, it's really wellmade. It's really good science
fiction. There is a very thinlyveiled Trump character in Mark
Ruffalo. And it is, it'sbasically, is about, there are
these colonization trips that goto some other planet, and Robert

(16:56):
pattinson's character, Mickey.
He volunteers to be on one ofthese because he needs to get
away from Earth. He's in sometrouble on earth, and He
volunteers. He doesn't know whathe's volunteering for, but he
volunteers to be an expendable.
And when he volunteers thateveryone's like, really an
expendable. Did you read thecontract? You know what you're
doing. You know. And basicallywhat he is is he's a guy who

(17:17):
they they save him in on like ahard drive, and they make him do
all of like, the really hardmissions, or they'll use him
for, like, testing, for like,you know gasses, or you know
diseases or anything. And whenhe dies, they just reprint his
body out and download hismemories back into him so he

(17:39):
can, he can, he can be reborn.
And 17, this is the 17th time hecame to life. And the problem is
arrives when they reprint himwithout being sure he's dead. So
there's two of them there. Thereare. There's a Mickey 17 and a
Mickey 18. So that, you know,that kind of, you know,

(18:03):
supposedly, when there areduplicates, they're supposed to
exterminate them both. So that'sthe crux of the movie. It's, I
mean, like I said, it's a goodscience fiction movie. I just
kind of, it's not great. And thereason is, I feel like they
could have gone I wanted more ofa statement, because it could
have really made statementsabout, like genetic testing, or
like lab rats, or things likethat, which it kind of goes

(18:26):
toward, but not as hard as itshould have. And the other thing
is, it gets towards the end.
When they get to the planet thatthey're going to, there's
obviously already a life formthat lives there. They call them
creepers. And of course, theywant to take the planet for
themselves. So it could havemade stronger statements about
imperialism. The only thing itreally does at 1.1 character

(18:46):
goes, but we're the aliens, youknow, dun, dun, dun. And then
that's all there was. So it I, Iguess I was a little
disappointed that it didn't, youknow the difference between good
and great science fiction, Iguess is the message. But I
mean, it's, it's worth seeingjust Robert Pattinson is amazing
because there are subtletiesbetween the different Mickeys,
because each Mickey has thememories of the one before, so

(19:09):
he still evolves as a character.
And the subtleties between thedifferent ones are pretty
incredible. He's, uh, man, that,that dude, dude. His post
Twilight career has been justincredible,

trying real he's trying to make up for it,
you

know, him and Kristen Stewart both. And I
think they're both doing a greatjob. Yeah, I think Twilight was
their paycheck, and now they'redoing what they want to do,
which, hey, more power to him.
Have you

guys heard of the gorge? Uh,

yeah, yeah, the new Scott Derrickson movie on
Apple TV. Yeah,

we watched that the other day, and it's
pretty good. It's Miles Tellerand Anna Taylor Joy play these
two like elite snipers,different backgrounds. He's a.
American, she's Russian andthere's this place where it's

(20:07):
like, it's this gorge, and, youknow, there's this mist above in
it. But basically, they're bothstationed on a opposite side
towers. The Russians control oneside, the Americans control the
other, and they're there to keepwhatever is in the gorge from
getting out. Do

they care if it goes to the other side?
Because you say that they'redifferent. So, I mean, are they,
are they kind of playing a gameof, like, tug of war, where,
like, as long as it goes out onthat side, we're fine? No,

no, it's it's more so, like, it's basically
like two enemies are both, like,no, whatever is down there is
bad. Like, we both have to,like, work on keeping it up, but
you stay on your side. We stayon our side. No communication is
supposed to happen between thetwo.

Okay, so they're cooperating. They're not
okay, yeah, yeah. It's like,

it's supposed to be, like a tense cooperation,
like there's supposed to be nocontact. But of course, you
know, miles Taylor and AnnaTaylor joy are such pretty
people. They start, you know,seeing each other through the
binoculars, and they startwriting notes to each other, and
they're playing chess across thegorge, and it's real cute, and,
oh, my God, they're so fallingfor each other. It's the
chemistry is kind of not therebetween the two.

There's a gorge between them. How chemical
can they get?

I mean, it they they try. But there's a
certain point where, like, they,they go to have a date and stuff
and miles, teller is like, ziplining across the gorge, and
then he falls into the gorge,and then she goes in after him.
And once they're like, in thegorge, it's pretty cool, like,
the the world, what's downthere? It's, they're basically
like, because, like, the wholetime they're like, the mouth of

(21:39):
hell is down there. And like, sothere's a lot of, like,
inspiration from hell,depictions of Baroque painters
and stuff. And it's, it's almostLovecraftian, the horrors that
are down there. And there's somecool stuff. But to be honest, by
the time you're down there,you're like, an hour into the
movie, and like, the and again,the crux of it, the falling in

(22:02):
love relationship. I don't know.
I definitely was sitting theregoing, like, there's a big age
difference here. And I don'tknow if I really buy Anna Taylor
joy, who just has rich face aslike, a poor Russian sniper
lady. You know, it's so like,yeah, it is, it is fun. There

(22:23):
are some fun moments, butespecially once you get into the
gorge and Sigourney Weaverplays, you know, the military
contract evil lady, which isalways fun when she gets to, you
know, ham it up a bit. Buthaving just recently watched
Vamps again, I'm like, I needed,I needed Sigourney Weaver to tap
into that more. But yeah, it's,it's fine. It definitely, you

(22:45):
know what it feels like? Itfeels like one of those, like,
really expensive streamingmovies, because that's, that's
what it is, an expensivestreaming

move. You don't say, yeah,

it is what it is.

Their big problem is they should have had
Anya Taylor Joy do the ziplining since she had experience
from Furiosa.

Well, that's true, the pole vaulting. But I
mean, like, it's, it's fun. Imean, like, I had a lot of fun
with it. I just kind of wishthere was, I wish the chemistry,
like, because half of it's aromantic movie, and the other
half is, like, this one, almostcosmic horror stuff going on,
and the cosmic horror stuff wascool. I just wish like or like

(23:30):
that that type of horror wascool. But like, I wish the love
story worked a bit better forme. But

it can't all be Heart Eyes. It can't. I have
a couple quick ones that arequestionably horror, but I think
everything we're talking aboutis questionably horror, except
for Jenny Penn, Apaches. Acouple, actually, Apaches were a
couple weeks ago. I saw the LastBreath. Have you guys seen that?
No, this is, this is a story youprobably heard. I've seen it.

(23:59):
The true story in a tons of likeof those YouTube survival
videos. It's basically aboutthese immersion divers, you
know, the guys who basicallylive in the pressurized
environment for like, months onend. And they, while they're
working, their ships, GPS getsdamaged, so the ship, like

(24:21):
floats away, and these two guysare, well, one of them gets left
at the bottom of the ocean, andthey have to go back down and
save them. And I tell you, thismovie, first of all, it's only
90 minutes long, and it is themost tense 90 minutes, the most
intense 90 minutes, I thinkI've, I've ever felt. And it is,
there's no fat on this movie. Itis, I mean, the little bit of

(24:45):
fat that you might consider fatare at the beginning and the
end, but once they get to, like,the actual, you know, operation
and the, you know, the rescue,there's no fat because there
can't be this dude's stuck downthere, and he only has 15
minutes. There. You can't affordany fat there. But yeah, the
last breath, that's, it's apretty hardcore survival story.

(25:07):
And the other thing I saw is thenew Steven Soderbergh movie, not
presence, Black

Bag. Oh, right, does that guy just not go
home? I, you

know? I, I'm wondering, in the San Diego Film
Critics Society, we have anaward we give for body of work.
And I'm think I was thinkingbefore I saw black bag, that
dude, Jack Quaid has got to getthat between Novocaine and and
companion. But now I'm thinking,dude, does Soderberg have
something else coming out thisyear? Because between Presence
andBlack Bag, but Black Bag iskind of like a spy thriller, but

(25:39):
not like a Bourne spy thriller.
More like it's it's almost likea who done it, because at the
very beginning of it, MichaelFassbender is he's meeting with
his boss. His boss gives him alist of five names. Says one of
these people is a trader who hasstolen this thing that is
integral to British survival.
And he's Oh, and by the way, oneof the names in that list is

(25:59):
your wife, which his wife isplayed by Cate Blanchett. So he
has to find the traitor, and itis four of his co workers who
are both couples and his wife.
So he starts with like a dinnerparty with the six of them, and
he starts asking questions totry to re root out who's lying
and stuff. And it goes to somecrazy places, and keeps
suspecting different people. Andthere's, there's lots of cool

(26:23):
twists in it. And that's anotherone that's, like, there's no fat
it's, it's, I think it's also 90minutes, which is surprising,
because it's kind of movie thatyou can totally see going for
215 when you hear the premise.
But it's, it's, it's a leanlittle, you know, spy thriller,
Soderbergh is really good aboutkeeping

it lean, like, especially focused, yeah,
especially in the last like,when he's been on this, like,
releasing, like, multiple moviesin a year, like, they've been
really lean, like Kimi and thoseother ones. And

Presence is only like 80 minutes, isn't it?
Or like 83 or 84 Yeah,

yeah,

less than an hour and a half, yeah? So yeah,
that's,

I mean, hey, I'm all for people making movies
leaner. Like I say, I could havewatched three Presences in the
time it takes to watch one, TheBrutalist, brutal Yeah, it's
more, not just a clever name.
And now let's bring in thisepisode, special guest. This
episode, we have Will Rogers,who is the he's he does a little

(27:31):
bit of everything, but the mainthing that we've got him on for
now is this book called survivethe night, which we're gonna let
him explain it, because it's achoose your own adventure
coloring book. So let's so firstof all, how you doing? Will
thanks for being here.

Will Rogers (27:48):
I'm doing great.
Thank you for having me.

Can you explain us, to us basically what
this project is? Yeah,

definitely. So Survive the Night. I look at it
this way. It's a slasher. Chooseyour own adventure story. And I
think we're all familiar withthe idea of, like the Choose
Your Own Adventure Right? Likeyou get some semblance of the
setup of a story. You've got tochoose A or B. Oh my god, if you
pick option a turn to page 45and oh my god, you died. So go

(28:16):
back to that first page. Pick adifferent option. Let's figure
out how not to die at everyturn. But on top of that, it's a
graphic novel. So it's a visualChoose Your Own Adventure,
slasher, very gory, lots ofsplash pages of you know, people
being ripped apart, eyes poppingout of skulls, no spoilers. And
then on top of that, it's acoloring book, so you can color

(28:40):
in the panels. You can handlethe gore. You can add extra Gore
if you want. Why not? It's allin good fun.

Make sure you got a good, sharp red crayon,

exactly. So it's sort of all things in one. It's
a choose your own adventure,gory slasher comic coloring
book. Got it?

Hell yeah, dude and

I was curious, because, you know this, it
covers so much ground in thatbeing choose your adventure and
a coloring book and a graphicnovel, how did you come to the
decision to kind of combine allthose ideas in one and also make
it, you know, for matureaudiences? Because, you know, I

(29:21):
remember doing a lot of chooseyour adventure books when I was
good and, you know, they gotpretty hairy, but, like, not
nearly as gory as this.

Yeah, no, that's true. Listen, hey, I wish, I
wish I could sit here and takecredit for the entire concept so
I will it was all me. No, isthis? This? This company inside
edition, they already do all ofthese sort of, like more mature
comic books, like coloring booksfor adult type concepts. And so

(29:52):
I've got enough of a history in,you know, being a horror writer
and a friend of mine suggestedto the company that Will Rogers
might be a good fit, becausethey were interested in doing
something that was, like, prettygory. But then, I will say, once
we linked up together and westarted batting around concepts,
I really got into the notion of,like, all right, writing a

(30:14):
coloring book. I'd neverconsider that before. I never
thought of that before. ChooseYour Own Adventure is cool. I've
never done that either. Thatsounds daunting and challenging,
and then the more that we weretalking about, I was like, what
if it functioned more and morelike a like a graphic novel too,
so that you've got panels oneach page, so you can really
have some time for the story todevelop and have some characters

(30:35):
drop in some fun horrorreferences and stuff. I
definitely tried to dial up thecomic book angle a bit, but they
they already had this horrorcoloring book pretty baked by
the time they came to me. I justwrote the story that's

awesome. I've I've always been a big fan of
choose your own adventures,especially as a kid, and
recently Star Trek put out warpyour own way with lower decks.
And so I'm getting back into it.
So you caught me at a perfecttime to get into this. But one
of the things I found was withchoose your own adventures. The
going back and forth gets alittle complicated if you don't
have five or six bookmarks. Andso I love this coloring concept,

(31:11):
because I'm like, oh shit, now Iknow which way I actually did,
because I'm coloring in it as Igo. And so it's like, helping me
navigate it a bit better.
Absolutely,

yeah, you kind of mark your that's interesting. I
didn't even really considerthat, to be honest. But yeah,
you are sort of marking yourprogress. I will also say, for
the ease of, like, navigatingthe book, when you hit a dead
end, it should explicitly say,like, go back to this exact page
so that there's less hunting andpecking, that kind of thing. I
love that. Thank

you for that.
Yeah, that's

what choose your own adventure. Never did,

yeah, I remember, I remember with choose your own
adventures like you have as muchfun with them as you can, and
then you inevitably burn out orsomething. We, I think we really
struck a good chord of like, nothis, take it at your own pace.
Have a good time with it, and itgives you all the tools that you
should need to be able to, youknow, go forward, go back, make
a new choice. All of that we're

we're going a little out of order than we
normally go. Because normally Ilike to start with the origin
story, you know that thebackgrounds. But I think we
needed a, we needed a goodoverview of what this project is
before we get any further. But,um, how did you get into you
because, because you're awriter, a horror writer. How did
you get into that? What? Whatwas the point in your life when

(32:27):
you're like, I want to do

this. You know, it's, it's one of those things
where there are sort of twoanswers to the question. The the
like, most precious one, is thatI remember being a kid writing
books for myself, and, like,binding them with cardboard, you
know what I mean? Like, I, forwhatever reason my brain, I just
always sort of gravitated tostories. And I, you know, I

(32:50):
would rip off stories I wrote,you know, like a kid's version
of, you know, Night of the dummyfrom goose bumps, where it was
just a teddy bear that comes tolife. Oh, how original. But so,
to some degree, it feels likeI've always been doing this, but
when I really sort of appliedmyself and got more serious
about like, because I've alwayswanted to be a writer, but when
I went, you know what, I thinkthe only thing I really care

(33:11):
about is horror. Was probably agood decade ago or more, and I
literally just started by beinglike, well, I'd gotten into
podcasting by that pointalready, I've been a podcaster
as well for boy like 13-14,years. And at a certain point in
doing all these podcasts, I wasI was loving the instant

(33:33):
gratification of have aconversation. You can have that
on the internet in five seconds.
And then I started to realize,like, well, that's kind of at
odds with the profession that Isay I want, of being a writer,
which is a slow process. Like somuch they're they're, in some
ways, totally antitheticalpodcasting, performing instant
gratification, writing delayedgratification, private. You have

(33:55):
to sit in a room and write andfill an empty page and about
yeah about a decade ago orsomething, I was like, what if I
just combine the two? And I juststarted writing stuff and
releasing it online, and itfeels like almost the second
that I did that a decent handfulof people took notice of my
work, and before I knew it, Iwas getting sort of horror gigs,

(34:16):
and I could not be happier beingin the horror genre and writing,
it's the thing I love the most,absolutely.

I mean, it's the best genre. Obviously,
it's our state, at least.

Yeah, I kind of think it is. I've had
conversations with people beforeabout, like, you know, if you
want to go see a movie, if I'mgoing to see, like, a comedy,
like, I kind of know what I'mgonna get if I'm going to go
see, you know, some, you know,Oppenheimer or something, I sort

(34:51):
of know what I'm gonna get ifI'm gonna go see a horror movie,
I might be laughing during it. Imight be, you know, thinking
about, you know, incredible.
Life and Death implications. Imight just be having a gory like
good time. I might be turning mybrain off, whatever. But to me,
the horror genre has moredegrees of interest to me than a
lot of other genres. The horrorgenre sort of encompasses

(35:15):
everything, in my opinion, andthe things that I remember most
from childhood, even like thekids movies that I was watching,
like, I've got, I've got kidsnow, and going back and
revisiting some of those earlyDisney movies and stuff like, I
You really can't overstate theimportance of how scary a lot of
those movies are. Like, thethings that you remember most

(35:36):
from your childhood is the scarystuff, and it's, it's partly,
partly just because. One, it'sprobably some level of trauma,
but, but two, I think it'salmost like this human evolution
thing of like, We're all afraidof everything. Embracing the
horror genre, to me, has alwaysmeant sort of like continually
evolving and bettering myselfand inoculating myself against

(35:59):
the real world horror is outthere. Tell him Large

Marge sent you. Yeah. How many of us got
traumatized by that? That was aPee Wee Herman movie. Yeah, you
know. And even when you evenwhen you do know what you're in
for, you still don't know. Haveyou seen Heart Eyes? No, I have
not yet. No, okay, hard eyes isthe perfect blend of romantic

(36:25):
comedy and slasher, and evenknowing those two genres and you
know what you're gonna get, itis still just the most fun.

Yeah, there's a chocolate and peanut butter
thing that for me and everythingis subjective, but for me, I get
it more when the movie starts asa horror, and I'm surprised by
all the other, you know, layersof other genres that appear in
it. Yeah, and

on survive the night. I was wondering if there
were any particular movies orstories that were influences on
writing it. Oh, absolutely,

yeah. I don't think anybody will be shocked by
several references that areparticularly people that might
be familiar with my work. I havea tendency to reference like the
same handful of things that Ijust obsess over, over and over
and over. So the bare premise ofthis story of survive the night,
because for it to be a chooseyour own adventure story, there

(37:16):
needs to be like, a real, likemechanism that gets the plot in
order. It's this group offriends who go to a cabin by a
lake, and one of them the sortof like main character that
you're trying to help survivethat night, Kristen is one year
prior her brother Bobby had beenkilled. And so are these murders

(37:40):
right now connected to that? Oris it just happenstance? Even
some of that, like the tropes ofhorror, I really enjoy reusing,
because I think that they'recomforting in a way. And even
the environment of being by thelake is very Friday the 13th,
the design of the killer is veryfamiliar to other masked

(38:02):
killers, even the names little,little things I think that
horror fans will enjoy. I think,like, you'll be able to pick up
when I reference things likescream in the book, and a lot of
it's even in the art as well,like it's but yeah, I'm totally
a product of my horrorobsessions, and there are
references throughout

awesome. It's reminding me a lot of, do you
remember they did a remaster ofit not too long ago? Is it not
NIGHT Watch the horror chooseyour scenario game where they
did live action? Yes,

yes. What is that called? And it was banned. But
for some reason, it's like, I

want to say, Night Watch. Was it? It's

not night watch. I have it on my
PlayStation. What is it? Yeah,that's gonna bond FMV, night
track, trap, yeah. And it was,it was a part of the
congressional hearings where itwas that in Mortal Kombat, and
they're like, we don't even haveblood. It's people falling
through trap doors, what's whatdo you mean?

Yeah, what's the problem? But, yeah, I think
there's, like a coziness to acertain type of horror. And I
think for this book inparticular, I wanted to nail
that like, kind of, likecomforting, cozy horror vibe, as
much as it is like, again,literally, blood spurting, like
heads getting crushed, like bigsplash pages for you to discover

(39:24):
mayhem and Gore and I, and yet Isit here, I'm like, It's so
cozy.

Oh man, I can't wait to see like, how
people are coloring it intobecause there's that, there's
these clips, because invincible.
It's a superhero show. It's verybloody. But in China, they have
to censor it. So what they didwas, instead of red blood, they
made it white. And so there'sone particular shot of battle
beast. And if you know anythingabout battle beast, he really
loves fighting. And it you canimagine what, what's being

(39:52):
referenced with those gifts. Butit's, it'll be interesting to
see if people do blue. Green orred and all that.

Yeah, sure.
Honestly, you can do whateveryou want. Yeah, who's to stop
you? That's

kind of another question is, is there a
way, because everybody's goingto color this differently? Do
you have, like, any kind of,like, a, like, a website or
something where people can kindof, like, share their work, of
your work, you know, theirinterpretation of your work? Is
there anything like that in theworks? Or

that's a great idea. That's such a good idea,
I'm going to steal itimmediately as good to say you
can have that. Yeah, yeah, no, Ithink that's a great idea.
Everybody out there. If you getthe book, if you enjoy it, if
you color it in an interestingway that you want to show off,
tag me @themythtraveler, oh,you're

going to get some really bad coloring in the
out, out of the lines. For me,in that case,

perfect. I want that terrible.

Or like, I'm also thinking, like that kind of
famous strong, bad email fromHomestar Runner where he made
his own coloring book and hejust edited a coloring book. So
like, some kids are playing inthe sand. It's like Geraldine
has buried Bob in the sand up tohis neck. He has only an hour to

(41:08):
live. I'm going

to do every page. I'm going to color every
page on a different drug. That's

an art piece. Then you can like, I've been sober

for almost 13 years, so no, that's a joke.

Okay, yeah, give that a pass. Then

I was about to say, that doesn't sound like a
you challenge Jay. That soundslike something. It is not
awesome. And so you have thisbook, and it's when this episode
airs, it'll be coming out thenext day. What other projects do
you have in the works?

Wow, I've got so I always have new episodes of my
podcast, Guide to the Unknowncoming out. The show that I host
with my sister, also namedKristen. I named the protagonist
of the Book who dies over andover after my beloved sister.
Prevent my sister from dying.
I'd have a good time coloringthe pages when she does. But so
Guide to the Unknown. We'realways talking about, you know,

(42:03):
urban legends and monsters, andthat comes out every single
Friday, and that's the projectthat I always think of first
that I sort of like, it's mystable my like, hang my hat on
you are

speaking my language. I'm subscribing as
soon as we're done here.

Oh, it's so I have such a good time urban

legends, folk tales, cryptids, that's me. Yes,

yes. I always say, if it's even remotely spooky,
we'll talk about it, because Inever want to stop doing the
show ever. But I also have a lotof fun stuff out there. Right
this second I'm I wrote apodcast, an audio drama podcast
called Blackwood. It's a sixpart series, very Blair Witch,
inspired about kids in a smalltown, sort of dealing with this

(42:51):
local urban legend. Very JerseyDevil, very Mothman. He's called
the Black nice bug man. And Ijust reacquired the rights to
that show. So I'm veryinterested in exploring, like
continuing the story on my own,

where can, can you find that? And you know,
you said you required therights, can you find what you've
already done that six part? Oh,sure. Is it? Oh, yeah. Is it
like on all the podcast apps? It

is, yeah. If you just look up Blackwood, you'll
find it. The logo is a big,spooky tree.

I'm taking down a list of all these things
I need to subscribe because thatsounds like it's at my sounds
like it's up my

alley too, honestly, like I try to strike a
chord where, like, I like, doingthings that are just like fun,
or really, like Scratch, kind oflike, I always call that one,
sort of, like a horror adventureseries, you know, like it's,
again, it's Just like, you know,not that I ever would claim that
I I would like to try toreinvent the wheel someday, but

(43:47):
I also just have these thingsthat I love and feel are just
like, so comforting and soBlackwood is very like. It's
basically my obsession withBlair Witch, sort of like,
manifested as my own kind ofcharacters mixed with my own
neuroses and oddities and allthat stuff. I've got a number of
stories on the No Sleep podcast.
Oh, nice. Yeah. I've got a TVseries that's coming out this

(44:10):
year on Screambox that I can'treally say much more about, but
I'm very excited when I canawesome, and an audio drama that
I directed, should be coming outnow at probably around October
this year, and it's inspired bya pretty cult graphic novel
where it's, you know, basicallymonsters like the familiar

(44:31):
Frankenstein, Dracula, Wolf Manversus Nazis. And so the Nazis
all end up getting, you know,ripped apart, bludgeoned by the
spoiler alert, but the monsterswin.

We always love and will support any Nazi
killing fiction and projects outthere. We're very pro punching
Nazis on this, yeah, that

project in particular, the longer it's gone
on, the more I'm. Like, you knowwhat? Actually, I've come back
all the way, or back around tobe like, this is more timely
than ever. The monsters, themonsters win.

We're we're very supportive. Sisu, Wrath of
Becky, any, any, yeah, any moviewhere Nazis die. We're in here.
Here's here's the question,Blair Witch, two, Book of
Shadows, pro or Kong? Are you?
Are you for or against?

Oh, do I have to just make the statement, or can
I qualify?

Well, here, here. Let me preface this by
saying, I love it. I think it'san amazing movie and and I think
it's better because it's a, it'sa sequel to the hype, not the
movie itself. So sure, just soyou know that the question is
kind of loaded, because youranswer, my entire image of you
is going to depend on youranswer, but no pressure. So

if I just simply say that, it's the second best
Blair Witch movie, are wesatisfied with that. I have,
we've, we've talked at like, tothe point that my audience, the
Guide to the Unknown audience,has gone like, can you guys stop
talking about Blair Witch? Weliterally got that. We literally
got somebody that was like, yougotta stop doing this. Because I

(46:15):
don't know. I'm convinced that,like 99% of people don't know
that the Blair Witch movies arejust the tip of the iceberg of
like, books and comics and videogames and lore. So we have
painstakingly gone throughalmost everything at this point,
to the point that I have. Ithink, if I think literally, if

(46:35):
you go to skip my website, isscary fun, dot fun. If you go to
scary fun, dot fun, slash BlairWitch. I think you get, like, a
bunch of episodes where we gocrazy on that franchise. I

don't think you can fully appreciate the
Blair Witch Project withouthaving been around when it came
out, you know, in 1999 when,because you could experience,
like you said, everything belowthe surface, because there was
so much lore and mythology,there's never going to be
another project. No, there's,there's never gonna, you're

(47:07):
never gonna be able to fool thepublic like that. Because also,
at the time, everyone thought itwas real. I mean, if you went to
Blair witch.com It was real. Butthen you go to the hackson
website, and they would lift thecurtain and they would let you
know it wasn't. But, yeah, youwould have to go to the chat
rooms. You would have to you'dhave to do your own work. You'd
have to watch the Sci Fi Channelspecial, you know, to get all

(47:31):
the mythology and and it'sbrilliant. I mean, I don't think
any people who don't dive intothat mythology truly appreciate
how great the movie itself is,

I couldn't agree more. And on top of that, I also
consider the Blair Witch entirefranchise as being like a master
class in letting a story worldexpand. I love the idea that the
feature film is just a part ofthe bigger fabric of that world.

(48:03):
I'm very obsessed with thatconcept of, like, even with
Blackwood, we ended up producingsome, like, bonus material
images that sort of augmentlistening to the show I I love
that I'm obsessed with. It wouldbe wonderful to just be like,
here's the project that I'mgonna tackle for like, the rest
of my life, and just like JRRtoken with Lord of the Rings and

(48:25):
making like The Silmarillion orwhatever, forever, just like
continue to flesh out the world.
If anything, it's like atravesty that it has not
continued under the sort of likeguidance of the original
creators. Having said that, if Ican brag for a minute,

please brag away. We love bragging,
especially

about actually not to contribute to the franchise.
I there's, I don't think manypeople even know about it, but
they we there was a, like atabletop game, basically, like
every month, this company wouldsend you the latest episode of
an ongoing Blair Witch story.
For about a year, there werelike 12 episodes, as we called
them, 12 boxes of this ongoingstory. And I was one of the

(49:09):
writers. I directed all the, notall, but a lot of the media for
the game and stuff. Sotechnically, technically, I've
contributed to the Blair WitchWorld. Well,

still counts.
Yeah, that's

Yeah,

true. I I'm always so i think i hedge my bets on
that one, because I'm like, butI'm not Edwards Sanchez, I'm
not, not Dan Myrick. I'm not anyof the originals, you know. But

I mean, still the hunt, the hunt a killer
series that you're talking aboutwith the with the gaming thing,
is still building on that myth,though, is building out that
world and all that and so, yeah,as as the Blair Witch, expert on
the on the panel right now, Ihave to ask the video game. I
started it, I got, like, I thinka quarter or halfway through, do

(49:55):
I need? Should I keep going?
You're

talking about the most recent video game, yeah,
the 119 Yeah, the PS, four oneis what I got. What made you
stop?

ADHD, I it happens with video games. Like,
every time someone's like, youplay Red Dead too. I'm like,
Yeah, I got, like, eight hoursinto. They're like, you only got
eight hours into? I'm like,ADHD, I got into other things. I
forgot some of the controls.
Tried to get back into it. Couldit, you know, I forgot where I
was in the story. It happens allthe time. Yeah,

I would argue you could probably watch some videos
online. I think, I think it'slike the 2019 game, for my
money, is kind of like, what ifBlair Witch was really just kind
of a Silent Hill side story, ifyou like, could do tears of
cannon. It's not, it's not eventouching that, like, top primary

(50:46):
cannon, in my opinion. But yeah,I've got, oh, boy, do I have
thoughts about that game. I'mactually, like, on the on the
precipice of diving back intothat game to do a little
research, to cover it on theshow. And I'm like, a little
anxious about having to go backin. Gotcha, I was not

(51:06):
necessarily the biggest fan ofthe game. No, it's

and I always find it funny, like, me not
finishing a video game is thesame argument as, like, wait,
you fell asleep during themovie. So it's bad. It's like,
No, it has nothing to do withthe quality. It's just, I was
just

tired. I just have, if you could watch videos and
get it? Yeah?

Everyone like, oh, until dawn. Must be so
scary. If you've never finishedit, it's No, literally, I keep
ADHD out. So I have fivedifferent saves because I keep
forgetting where I am, what I'mdoing, what's going on. So I've
restarted it. Yeah, I get that.
I always kill the squirrel,though. I always want to see
what nature is going to do tome, much to the chagrin of my
partner, who was genuinelyshocked the first time I played

(51:45):
she's they were like, You had nohesitation shooting that
squirrel. I'm like, Well, Ifigured it was gonna cause some,
like, bad stuff and, like, it'sa horror thing. I want to see
everyone die horribly. You know,it's also

a digital squirrel.
It's different if I walk out thefront door, and if I walk out
the front door and suddenlyshoot a squirrel, we have a lot
to talk about, and I get it. No,I'm just shooting squirrel.
Yeah, yeah. I'm running overbunnies and Red Dead Redemption
on my horse. It's all right.
It's okay. I

remember I was, I was teaching my wife how
to play Grand Theft Auto once.
This is, like, years and yearsand years ago. It might have
been Grand Theft Auto three. Idon't even one of the real old
ones, but, um, and I was showingher how you can walk up and just
punch people. And she's playing,and she and she goes up to a guy
in a suit, and I'm on not thatguy, and she punches him. And
those are the mafia guys. So he,of course, pulls out a gun.

There are repercussions. You got to know
who to punch. Yeah, yeah. Alwayspunch down and grab

that. You punch cops or guys in suits.
Everybody else is fair game. Oh,man.

I remember my grandparents walked in on us
trying to play Grand Theft Auto,and so it was suddenly like,
turn into a driving simulatorand accidentally ran over
someone. And they're like, Youjust killed someone. How could
you do that? And they're like,oh, they were a prostitute. It's
fine, I guess, right, it's avideo game. Grandma, why did
they allow you to kill people?
And it's like, this isn't evenscratching the surface of the

(53:11):
violence of this.

You really want to see something, grandma. Show you
a good time.

And back on Blair Witch Oh, because we're
fans here. Have you seen theScooby Doo project?

Oh yes, oh yes.
That is like a work of art,genuinely like that was a labor
of love for the folks who madethat. I am so impressed. Like
doing the sort of like Cellanimation on top of live footage
to put Scooby Doo in the woodsand running through the house.
I'm kind of amazed that theynever tried to do anything

(53:48):
similar with that animation inlive action, kind of like that,
because I actually also justgenuinely thought it was cool.

Yeah, so many Scooby Doo projects out there.
I'm surprised they haven't triedto, like, expand on that more
outside of just like, because itwas just supposed to be
commercials for Scooby Doocoming to Cartoon Network
finally. And then, yeah, that'sright, they took the assignment.
Are you saying

you want Book of Shaggy Yeah, someone write
it. There you go, pitch

somebody called Cartoon Network. Yeah,

you lean into shaggy as a god mythos that the
internet has

created. Yep, all right. Well, will thanks for
joining us today. This come backanytime. We will talk at length
about Blair Witch Project. Wewill talk about, I will talk at
length at crypt about cryptids,urban legends, anything spooky.
So, yeah, thank you for joiningus. Where, what socials you got
so people, any of the stuff thatyou couldn't talk about that you

(54:50):
want to how can they find outabout

that? Yeah, follow me @themythtraveler. I'm on blue
sky, Instagram, I guess,Facebook. Technically also
follow @GTTUPod, that's theguide to the unknown podcast,
which is everywhere. It's applepodcast, Spotify all that stuff.
But I always try to post whenI've got new things that are
coming out. I've got, I alwayshave a number of irons in the

(55:13):
fire. I've got really fun stuffcoming out this year, for sure.
I love doing this. It's harderto get me to stop talking. This
was a blast. Thank you.

Well, thanks for being here. This is, this is
great. This is a greatinterview. And everybody go and
check out Survive the Night byWill Rogers a choose your own
adventure coloring book, and youdon't have to color before you
change turn the page, but itmight be more fun that way. As
for us, our theme song is byRestless Spirit, so check them

(55:46):
out. And our artwork is by ChrisFisher, so go check him out. And
you can find us on all thesocials, @EyeOnHorror, or at
ihorror.com which is the websitewe call home, and we will see
you in a couple of weeks. So forme, James Jay Edwards,

I'm Jacob Davison.

I'm Jonathan Correia,

and I'm Will Rogers Survive the Night!

Keep your Eye On Horror.

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