[0:19] Hello, everyone. I'm Jonathan. I'm Crystal. And this is Haunt Weekly,

[0:25] a weekly podcast for the haunted attraction entertainment industry. Whether you're an actor, owner, or just playing aficionado, we aim to be a podcast for you. And we return to you this week with episode number 488, divisible by four. That means it is time to do the news. That one's even easy to figure out by four. I know, because 88 is 22. Even my lame brain can't do math in my head can figure it out i'm a concepts guy you know yeah i'm good with calculators but anyways yes indeed we have a lot of news this week a lot is going on um and a lot of it's once us okay i feel like i'm saying this every time we do a news episode we have the same conversation it's yes a lot of news is depressing we've got some very dead canaries and very big coal mines right now yeah so yeah that that's a problem but we promise if you put up with it we'll give you treats at the end because our listeners are like cats and that's how i'm bribing them meow or dogs dogs also beg for treats yeah but dogs don't do it the way cats do they hit you up on the beeper they may deliver your catnip cats are way more bigger assholes about it But anyways.

[1:47] If that doesn't sound like what you want to listen to right now, I kind of understand.

[1:52] Check out any other 487 episodes at HauntWeekly.com, HauntWeekly on Facebook, YouTube.com, slash HauntWeekly, and wherever you get your podcasts from. Okay.

[2:04] So, taking things in order, work we did for the haunt was not a lot this week, to be honest. You did the necessary spraying, washing, and power washing of the house. Yeah, got most of it done. There's still more to do. Yeah, and it looks a lot better. The front does. Yeah, the front does, and you know what, in many ways, that's the most important part. So, yeah, we got that done. But it was also an unusually hot May weekend here. Jesus Christ. Yeah, we're already hitting feels like hundreds. Yeah, and it was so bad, and this is literally true, over the Memorial Day weekend, our local power company, Entergy, did a quote-unquote load shed. Yeah. Or they deliberately cut power to 100,000 residents in the New Orleans area. Without warning. No warning. On a holiday weekend. And feels like temperatures of 100 degrees. Plus. And several of our friends were impacted. We were not impacted directly, luckily. Right. But that appears to have been just a matter of random chance.

[3:12] Yeah. Entergy threw the dart of the dartboard and decided these neighbors get fucked. All of our friends that live on the lakeside got hosed.

[3:22] And our friends who live further away on the West Bank and JP got hosed. And also, on the North Shore, I had a friend who was at a party up there, and the party lost power. Jesus. Because it was Sunday that this happened. And it also went all the way down to Plaquemines, too. Yeah. Down to Lake Belchase and all that, so way south of the city. It was just totally fucking random. Over 100,000 customers were impacted. No warning. And apparently, they sent an email to the impacted customers, like, yesterday. Yeah, after it happened. You know, days after it happened. And if you want to have some fun, go to Reddit rNewOrleans and look at that thread and look at the shade. It's enough shade to stop global warming. I mean, it was incredible. I wish it were that easy. I wish it were too. If I... If that kind of shade did stop global warming, like New Orleans would be number one in stopping it. Yeah. You know, and we'd all be calling Christoph the Insulter to come out and help fix this shit. Oh, I'm just thinking about all my drag queen friends. Oh, God, yes. All your gay towns are going to be legendary. But, yeah, so it's been a wild weekend.

[4:37] We did enjoy pieces of it, at least.

[4:41] But, yeah, we did not get much done. We don't have any real housekeeping. We're still trying to nail down when is the best time of Crystal's new job to upload these. We're still trying to keep to a weekly schedule. We don't want to skip weeks, but especially with a holiday this week, things were unpredictable. That's why we're uploading on Thursday right now. Yeah, yeah.

[5:00] Um so i think that's all for that that night i hurt my shoulder tuesday so i couldn't finish the notes yesterday yeah and then hurt it from repetitive strain at work not the power washing no which i mean that'd be cool yeah and how'd you hurt your shoulder just power washing the front of the house how'd you hurt your shoulder oh i was working 12 hours one day and i was sitting at a desk under stress and deadline that wasn't an appropriate desk yeah apparent or an appropriate chair something's inappropriate yeah all right but on that note everyone every week we ask a question a week last week our question was what did you think of the film centers we had a very lengthy conversation about the film and what i think haunted attractions can take away but let's see what other people said uh jinx midnight said loved it but also hadn't heard anything about it until a vampy friend recommended it after she heard about it from a friend and this was something we talked about it is.

[5:57] In the episode was that ellie had not heard word one about it full stop until you mentioned it to her right and i picked it up from social media and honestly looking back on it i don't know if those were ads or just people going to it now i don't remember i just remember seeing the poster all hither and y'all i just remember seeing all of my friends saying you've got to go see this in theaters it's got to go in theaters yeah and that was the other that was the message you want to see this in theaters you don't want to wait and catch this you know in home theater on streaming or whatever um but she goes on to say the integration of music and the thought that maybe it would be better to side with the quote-unquote bad guys was phenomenal and i have to agree and even though i love that big musical scene where they did mix all the shot it was just amazing i am a deep sucker for irish folk music i that may be the whitest thing about me is how much i love irish folk music yeah i mean but yeah it's true i am a deep sucker and that scene where they were at the campfire doing the jigs oh that was great.

[7:00] Oh, Sam Farrell said, best film of the year so far. As a horror fan, I thought it hit all of the beats of vampire lore without pretension or reimagining. But as a musician, this film and that scene was almost transcendent for me. And yeah, that scene being the one where all the genre, oh my God. You just have to see it and experience, you can't really explain it. It's like... But I agree. Trying to explain it to someone who hasn't seen it is pretty much impossible because there's so much going on, both musically and visually in that.

[7:38] And really, the ramp up on it is so wild. Because, like, hey, that person's a little out of place. Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on, hold on. I'm losing it. It's such a wild scene, and it was just perfectly shot, perfect music. It's it's it's up there for me it's one of the best you know segments ever committed to film yeah hands down and haunted the roxbury said so far the best of 2025 coogler is the man i do not disagree do not disagree one bit uh so yeah i think it yeah if so basically our trusted listeners here have spoken on top of us it's not just these two idiots saying you should go see it, seems to be far more than us, which is great. Really, please do go see it if you can. It's worth it. If nothing else, then to see kind of a different sort of horror film that may give you some great inspiration for your haunt or your character. Yes. There's a lot of great character work in this, too, so even if you're just working on your haunt character, you're going to find shit useful.

[8:46] Guaranteed. All right, well, on that note, it's also an even episode, which means we do conference reminders crystal you want to kick us off oh whoa whoa sorry go ahead you you forgot about the question no but then i remembered where actually you see go ahead you're setting it up oh okay sure we'll overlap this way june 6th through the 8th it's midwest haunters convention at the rosemont in illinois um.

[9:12] It's at the Donald E. Stevens Convention Center in Rosemont, Illinois. My cursor was not in the right place, and I couldn't just scroll over.

[9:22] Friday's screening of Haunt Season, Tour of Abandoned Haunted House, Seminars, Costume Party, and more. MidwestHauntersConvention.com. And this week's question of the week, and I'm going to pretend like I planned this, because this actually was the question we put down. But, yes, are you going to MHC? And if so, what are you looking forward to? Let us know at all the places we exist. HauntWeekly.com, HauntWeekly on Facebook, and YouTube.com slash HauntWeekly. Now, after Midwest Honors Convention, it's Michigan Haunt Fest, June 20th through the 22nd in Munich, Michigan. The Oaks campground demos, make and takes, Saturday raffles, and costumes slash makeup classes. Looks like a lot of fun. MichiganHauntFest.Weebly.com. July 26th and 27th is Texas Haunters Convention in Irving, Texas at the Irving Convention Center. It'll be featuring a trade show floor, haunt tour with dark hour, game night.

[10:21] TexasHauntersConvention.com for more info. And finally this week, Hauntmare Expo is July 26th to 27th, the same days, but it's in Fresno, California. A totally different state.

[10:34] There are the fresno fairgrounds featuring five haunted attractions three escape rooms and a rage room various special guests and horror panels hauntmayorexpo.com that's like a lot of great horror haunted attraction conventions coming and going these days i love it i'm happy to see it always happy to see it all right well we got to knuckle down and do the news Yep. Fun part over. Well, for the minute. But anyways, yes, indeed, it is time to do the news. And this week's first couple of stories are on the sad side, but going to try to get through them and hopefully, like I said, at the very top of the show, end on a positive note. Our first story this week, Six Flags America and Hurricane Harbor in bowie maryland are set to close after the completion of the 2025 season their last day they will be open will be november 2nd after that they will no longer be reopening um according to six flags it operates both of these parks they do not fit the quote-unquote long-term growth.

[11:47] And you want to read the quote, because you do the better quote voice. As part of our comprehensive review of our park portfolio, we have determined that Six Flags America and Hurricane Harbor are not a strategic fit with the company's long-term growth, which is what you just summarized.

[12:05] But, you see, I would have read it in a very mocking voice. Yes. Well, fine. After reviewing the number of options, we believe that marketing the property for redevelopment will generate the highest value and return on investment. There you go. Better? Yeah. So, basically, now, for those who suck at geography or never heard of O.E. Maryland, which I'm pretty sure is one of those things, describes almost everyone listening. This is part of the Washington, D.C. metro area. In fact, if you look at it on a map, it looks like it's practically in Washington, D.C.

[12:43] So it seems like there would be plenty of people to go to a theme park. You have a very large population center. You have a tourist economy there. But granted, I don't know how much of that tourist economy is going anywhere near Six Flags. Right. Because I think they might have had, with tourism, they might have had the same problem that the Six Flags New Orleans had. which is people come to visit New Orleans as tourists, they ain't going to Six Flags or some theme park. No, and the theme park here was, like, you had to have a car. Yeah, and then it looked like it was that way with the Six Flags America 2. If you were just, like, going to the Smithsonian, the mall, the White House, all that stuff. Yeah, you needed a car to get to Six Flags. I don't know if public transit goes out there, but it was not like right on top of the White House. Right. Oh, hey, in four years, who knows if there'll be a roller coaster in the White House.

[13:43] But the point is... I'm seeing more of a circus thing. But the point being, I think it had a lot of the same problem in that if you go to D.C. as a tourist, it's not to go to theme parks. No. You're going for those things I just listed. Historical, museums. Historical, government. Museums, memorials. You can make your own list, and it probably will not include a theme park. But even without that, that is a huge population center that should be able to sustain a theme park. And according to Six Flags, it's not. Well, and I'm wondering if by long-term view, what they're doing is they're freaking out about the same thing that colleges are. Because there is going to be a significant dip. It's coming up soon, and the number of young people available to go to college or available to go to theme parks and, by chance, haunted houses. So maybe that's what they're looking forward and seeing, is that there just aren't enough young people to continue. And theme parks, by and large, have the same target market that haunted attractions do. Yeah. The other thing that may be an issue specifically with D.C., And once again, I have not looked at the figures here. This is pure conjecture.

[15:07] Is that D.C. is a government town. It is the government town. Government towns often have a large population, but often not a large number of families. Because people move there for government roles. And if they have a family, they don't bring them, leave them behind somewhere else, you know, as a means of saving on money. Because D.C. is also a very expensive market. I remember when AOC got into Congress, She struggled to find a place to live because even making Congressperson money, she couldn't find an affordable place. Right. So that was a trip to Dickick City to hear that. Yeah. So, yeah, I wonder if that's also part of it. But, yeah, this is a really big dead canary in a very big coal mine right now for me. This has me more as much as the other stories coming up and there are a few.

[16:09] This one has me probably the most worried because you can say what you want about the theme park industry and i will say a lot of shitty things about them six flights we still haven't forgiven you for the haunted castle fire for one we remember but they are very good at future projection, they know when something is going on often before others do and that's because they know they're in their whole business models very sensitively shocks and so this may be a situation where they're quite honest about long-term plans because this may not be a wall they would hit in five years with this year or next year or five years even but you know it could be 10 years like you It could be that wall you were talking about with the fewer young people coming up, the baby collapse, as some have called it, I believe. The opposite of a baby boom, the baby collapse. Yeah, exactly, because people stopped having as many kids. Well, I mean, we didn't have any kids.

[17:14] We're part of the problem and i i'm proudly part of that problem i know but no it's yeah so ah geez yeah i um now this has me worried about long-term prospects of the haunted attraction industry as does this next story yeah because this one has a bigger one of this year but yeah Yeah, but Spirit Halloween has canceled their opening store experience. This is an article by Brendan Brightman at 10 Philadelphia, but they're citing international disruptions and supply chain issues. So, same things that caused issues back when COVID was around. But, yeah, the Egg Harbor Township grand opening event is not going to happen this year. Yeah, the big spectacle event where they introduce all the new products. Yeah. And, like, 5,000 people come out and do this giant thing. It's in the Philly area. It's in New Jersey. So it's, once again, Philly metro area. That's why this is an article from 10 Philadelphia. But, yeah, they are not doing it this year. and have specifically cited supply chain issues. Yeah. Now, they did say in both their release and this article, we originally saw their press release. I'm just linking to this article for convenience sake.

[18:43] But they did say that they still anticipate to have all 1,500 of the stores open on time starting opening in mid-August. Yeah. They usually do a staggered opening. But yeah, starting in mid-August. I think that's mighty bold. Yeah. I, you know what, I get it because right now things may don't, maybe don't look quite as bad as they did a month ago. But who the fuck knows? That's been the whole thing, you know, with this administration more than anything. It's been the uncertainty and not knowing what tomorrow brings. Yeah. I mean, in fact, we had a story that we were going to include and just don't think we have time to get to. And it's not direct to our industry, but yeah. Yeah, but there's a story out there right now called the uncertainty epidemic, stating that the uncertainty of consumers is higher than ever. Even during the pandemic. And the article is by, if you want to seek it out yourself, by Philip Hernandez and N Park Magazine, IPM.

[19:49] And yeah we almost included this as a full story but it seems like we have enough of a theme of uncertainty without including it so yeah the consumers are not sure and in this case Spirit and others are not feeling particularly confident either I mean this has been a tradition for some time yeah so having you know a major theme park closing one of its place one of its locations and

[20:16] And now Spirit of Halloween saying, sorry, we can't. We can't do our big bash this year. Yeah. We promise to be open in time. Yeah, that just. Yeah. Like you said, really big canaries. Yeah. And it does not inspire any confidence in me. No. Because this is the part where I like to say, oh, but we have this, this, and this. And it's like, yeah, I don't really know. Well, no, and especially because, like, a lot...

[20:51] So, I feel sad for the small costume shops that used to be here that were local mom-and-pop places before Spirit really took off. Yeah. Because they're closed for years now. Yeah, they haven't been around in, like, at least 10 years in most cases. But they would have had the same supply chain issues. They would have. They were getting the same costumes from the same people, basically. Mm-hmm. I mean, and this is one of the reasons why that year we were able to go to the Halloween and Party Expo. Yeah. When it was co-located with HauntCon here in New Orleans, we were able to go to both. It was very interesting to see those costume companies. Oh, yeah. And see what they're doing and how they're marketing and really, you know, get a first person view of this stuff. It was really interesting.

[21:43] My God, you know, right now, you have to wonder what's going to happen as far as Halloween and Christmas decor. I think Christmas may get a boost by being a little further out. But this, okay, here's a thought. And this is a crazy thought. Okay. Because of supply chain uncertainty and all the shit that's been going on, I wonder if Christmas in major stores is going to be later this year for the first time and as far back as I can remember.

[22:14] So i'm going to take a stab and say no okay and the reason is is that we already know some of the big box retail stores put in all of their orders for the rest of the year basically okay so i think that they're going to have them in at the same time and they're not like the individual stores don't have places to store all of that yeah so i don't i guess we'll see yeah i mean we're gonna you could be you could be absolutely supply chain disruptions we'll see i mean and this is what we saw during kobe you mentioned that during kobe it has very unpredictable impacts yeah and it's because every company and every product is in a different place you know every every every store every product everything is in a totally different place based upon who makes it where they make it what the tariffs are in that place where they're shipping to it's all everyone's in a different place so yeah the spirit canceling this does not inspire confidence in me and neither does the next story which is that Greenbrier Farms is closing to the public but will host a quote unquote trio of

[23:26] seasonal offerings this article is by Jimmy LaRue at.

[23:29] Wavy W-A-V-Y I guess it's probably how they say it but i'm calling it wavy um in chesapeake virginia greenbrier farms is immediately closing to the public they will have a christmas they will sell christmas trees and do some christmas stuff they will have their strawberry patch and their pumpkin patch but other than that they will be closed to the public they are blaming this on quote-unquote.

[23:56] Increasing operational restrictions from the city of chesapeake permitting and zoning as well as the Chesapeake Health Department. They will no longer, the main reason they're appearing here is because they will no longer host the Haunting at the Farm, which was their haunted farm attraction. I don't know if you picked that up. Yeah. And they will end all of its Christmas activities other than selling Christmas trees and providing free photos with Santa. Yeah, it sounds like there's strictly going to be a farm with a photo op for Christmas. Yeah, basically it sounds like the only non-farm-related activity they're going to do is, as you noted, the photo op, which is free. Yeah. Now, so this means no haunted house, no fall festival, no derby day, no Easter egg hunt, or other events. This article, and this is one of those times where the article really is interesting, goes on for all the events they did. They basically had a year-round, like this is what a lot of haunts dream of, is they had a complete year-round schedule. They were always doing something. Every season you can think of, they had something. And they had something going. And now all but like the bare minimum of that is gone.

[25:10] I don't know. I mean, I'm a little confused because they say it's based upon the operational restrictions of the city. But they never say what those restrictions are. Yeah. Like in other cases where we've seen this, we usually know more about what those restrictions are. Oh, they're saying they're trying to rezone us as X. Or they're trying to eminent domain our land, like we've talked about a couple of times. Stuff like that. Right now, they're just kind of vaguely, they're basically vague looking, you know, toward these departments. And my thought is they seem to be very popular with the community. So why not, you know, get community support if that's the issue? Because, I mean, we've seen other haunted attractions make that work, especially ones that are extremely popular and well-connected in the community. Now, if you recognize the name and you're not from the region, the reason is because they made national news in June of last year, 2024, when they hosted a rally for then-candidate Donald Trump. Yeah. And I have to wonder if maybe that has a hand in it. I don't want to, like, cast aspersions, but it's like whenever you pick a side, especially right now with things the way they are, you're basically cutting your audience in half. Mm-hmm.

[26:38] Um you know i always say that you know be political as a person but as a business, keep your business out of it type thing yeah um because everybody's money is just as green at the end of the day now obviously that's not true for everyone there are plenty of very political businesses who make it part of their culture and their marketing but if they didn't do that going in, then they probably were dealing with some angry people on the backside. Yeah, and we have no idea, because of the vague booking, if that plays into this at all. Yeah, and that's what's so weird about this, is I read a couple of other articles about it, and we really don't know what these issues are, because they didn't say anything other than that quote of, yeah, basically, we blame the city of Chesapeake. Mm-hmm.

[27:30] I don't know. I can't make anything of that. Nope. So I guess it's sad to lose another on an attraction. It's sad to lose one that was doing a lot of great year-round work. But, yeah, we don't really know why. What's up? Nothing. I am not saying anything else. All right. Fair enough. Let's move on to the next one before we get a more interesting email.

[27:57] Yeah. All right. Long Island Haunted Firehouse, a new chapter in Haunted Entertainment. This is a press release from, we found it on BarChart. And Marty Araminski, hope I got that close. I think you got it pretty bang on, actually, looking at the spelling. It's going to launch Long Island Haunted Firehouse, Inc. Previous creations that they've built are Chamber of Horrors, New York. and Blood Manor, New York City. So, yeah, it seems like they've got a lot of experience in building haunts, and so now they're going to bring the newest endeavor, which transforms the Farmingville Fire Department into a haunted spectacle.

[28:51] The event, basically 20 themed scares, eerie clowns, ghostly apparitions, offering a Chinese immersive horror experience, which I know that we say that that's what haunts are, but we don't need to all use it in our marketing. Well, and, you know, one of the... Well, it's like, reading this, like, both Blood Manor and Chamber of Horrors are well-known haunts. So that's pretty well correct. The one thing I think I've got to knock this guy on, though, is this very uncreative naming scheme. Yeah. How many Chamber of Horrors are there in the country again? I think there's, like, one in each state, basically. One for each state. And Blood Manor is not particularly creative. And then there's the Long Island Haunted Firehouse.

[29:41] Farmingville fire department yeah it's now going to be long island haunted firehouse yeah yeah so naming maybe not the strong suit um but still very interesting because they obviously believe in and are investing in and trying to grow haunted directions and i find it interesting that they are, doing all this inside one state yeah they're not trying to well at least not yet uh but they're not trying to become like a national force you know so i yeah it's interesting um so they definitely are trying to grow and expand their offering so like i said maybe maybe maybe the canary's chirping a little bit right all right well next story this now we're getting into the more fun stuff it's ramping up folks to the more fun all right next one ivan's honor student brings animatronic minotaur to life this is an article on the um st george utah.com website uh a ninth grader at vista school public charter say that five times fast please don't yeah and sorry the article's by stephanie degraw thank you just putting that in in the morning it's all right um, But the ninth grader has a quote-unquote passion for animatronics and special effects and created a towering animatronic minotaur for a school play.

[31:08] It took them six months to build this. Yeah. Now, this is a special school. Like, they focus on animatronics and science and stuff. Um but but yeah this this one's definitely worth checking out the article because it doesn't say that was one of the weird things omissions is they don't say how tall it is but when you look at him standing next to it it's like at least twice as high so we're going to assume well north of 10 feet yeah probably between 10 8 and 10 yeah we need to get one of them 12 foot skeletons to put next to it yeah 12 foot skeleton for a scale exactly that's exactly what we need. You get the 5 foot skeleton and the 12 foot skeleton for scale, right? This should be the new Haunted Industry Standard. How many giant skellies tall is it?

[32:03] Measuring men to the rescue! Is it just a leg bone or is it the full thing? He said he was introduced to professional prop makers in the Halloween category by watching videos on distortions, unlimited and poison props. Great places to learn. We talked about mechanics they use. They do professional animatronics that are more aggressive or professional haunted houses, he said. So his is a little more gentle. Yeah. Probably not a bad idea, let's be honest. Right. But yeah, the video, this is definitely when you go check out the article. The video is great. Minotaur is very impressive. And like I said, they don't mention the height. But it's, I would say at least .75 skellies. Yeah, at least. At least. At least .75 skellies.

[32:49] All right. I'm going to let you take this one because I want to take the last one. All right. That's fair enough. All right. So, and this is just a random piece of great news that tickled my funny bone, and I figured a lot of you might like it as well. There is a new Vincent Price documentary getting ready to come out, and it features interviews with Rob Zombie, Meg Garris, Caroline Monroe, Alice Cooper, and many, many, many more. And this is the article we're pulling from for this is um by cody hammond jablo um jablo.com uh but no it's a new documentary about the legendary actor vincent price they do not have a release date for it other than this year yeah and i mean i get it especially when you're taking a documentary on the film circuit you probably don't know when distribution is going to happen, if it's going to happen. But yeah, they're clearly putting it out there for potential distribution, and they've released a trailer on YouTube. The full film runs for 136 minutes, so basically 1.0 sinners.

[34:02] Yeah, I am looking forward to this a lot. Yeah. Vincent Price has long held a place in my heart, and if you're too young to know who Vincent Price is, go now and just look it up yeah i mean a a lot of his films some of his films at least are in the public domain which means you can literally go out on any yeah there's there's an entire playlist of when he read the um the rave uh egor allen poe series yeah short stories um he was also the creepy voice in the michael jackson thriller video which if you've seen that and you got chills listening to the monologue toward the end of it blame him yeah um he also played the dad in edward scissorhands so i don't think that's a great role to see vincent price at his peak no no i would what would be your favorite vincent price film.

[35:02] Oh, gosh. I know. That's an impossible choice. I like choosing my children. I was going to say, for me, if I were going to say to someone, this is the film to see Vincent Price in, I would say House on Haunted Hill, the original, obviously. I think Last Man on Earth. Ooh, good one. Of course. But, of course, if you really want to see him at his absolute best, just pull up the videos of him with the Muppets. Yeah. Oh, God. Because I love those. Or, if you want to see him in a very difficult situation, watch The Tingler. Yeah.

[35:37] Because that movie necessitated him to say the stupidest shit ever put to paper in history. And he made you fucking believe it. No. I don't want to hear anyone complaining about their lines being shit. If Vincent Price can make that crap fly, it can be done. Yeah. The problem is, you're not Vincent Price, which to be fair, no one is. But yes, I mean, just listening to him go, yep, yep, totally attached to the spine, lives on fear, makes total sense. Yeah. I'm winning the whole way. Oh, yeah, that's what makes you tinkle. Yeah, yeah. We're riding this train together. Better go ahead. Wait, that's stupid. You kind of wake up after the movie's done. Wait, that was dumb. What the fuck is wrong with me?

[36:27] Oh god but yeah he's been in so many films and yeah we could go all day about Vincent Price but this new documentary has us completely stoked from the fact that Rob Zombie and Alice Cooper both Alice Cooper famously having worked with Vincent Price on multiple occasions, Yeah, just awesome. I am excited. Please, please, please, someone pick this up and put it into my streaming very soon. That's all I'm asking. Yeah. Yeah, I would love to see it. And finally this week, we may be ending a few minutes early. What else is news? It's a news week. Yeah.

[37:01] Hot Dolls is going to be at Midwest Haunters Convention, which is next week. Also the question of the week this week. Yes, exactly. It's the brainchild of Alex Berland from Conjured Media. Disclosure, I did work with him for a brief period a few years ago. And it's in partnership with featured artist KDA out of Kentucky, Moonheller Productions, costumer Brandy Beast. If you have not seen Brandy's work, you are missing out. Do amazing work. Lost Souls Chicago's with James Pallas, one of our old friends. Been on the podcast more than a few times. Yeah, we probably need to have them back. We definitely do. Especially when we're approaching 500. Yeah. But anyway, at Transworld, they did a soft launch of the hot dolls, which featured personalized crocheted characters of haunt actors. And now at MHC, they're being very top secret about what the experience is going to be. But they say that it will be a one of a kind event.

[38:06] And you will leave with a limited edition display piece and a story to go along with it. So that sounds interesting, and if you want to check it out and report back to us on what the fuck they're doing, stop by booth 3039. Yeah, this hits at a lot of intersections for us because Ellie, our girlfriend, runs the yarn store, so knitting, crochet, fiber arts in general, big part of the fan, big part. Jake's Palace, obviously a big part. Alex Berlin, obviously a big figure, too, in our lives. And so, yeah, this just comes together at all these intersections. And I love the idea of getting a custom crocheted Bernie doll. Yeah. Completely little Bernie Kane.

[38:50] Yeah. Bernie Kane, Bernie Kane. Get a crochet, Bernie Kane. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know if, and this is called In the Flesh, by the way. Yeah. The event is. And I don't know if it will be crocheted or not, but it will be something unique. Yeah. And this is really, really cool stuff.

[39:11] Yeah. personalized you know crocheted or created characters and they're like said it's kind of weird it's kind of weird for us to get a press release which has both a lot of information and no information at the same time yeah so no we have no idea what the fuck the experience is but we know everything about who's behind it and what they did at trans world yeah yeah basically we like the people we like and trust the people so yeah uh brandy b everyone involved yeah it's amazing so yeah this is this is a an avengers assemble moment in their own way yeah but yeah so all in all some neat stuff happening but yeah god i i gotta say i'm i'm worried i'm ending this this month's news episode a little bit on the worried side, And one thing we didn't discuss, and this was, by the way, also almost a news article, but it wasn't direct enough, was news about WWE tickets. Oh, yeah. Ticket sales have been abysmal, apparently. And even though the product has been pretty popular on Netflix, ever since they moved to Netflix, it seems to have been the last few weeks, apparently, been the drizzling shit in terms of viewer shit.

[40:24] But in general, they've been doing pretty well as far as viewership and popularity goes. And apparently they're having trouble selling even small arenas. Now, some have blamed this on the significantly hiking ticket prices. We went to the last WrestleMania that was in New Orleans. Yeah. 34. And I found out after the fact, we didn't pay for our seats. We worked out a trade with some friends who were going. Yeah. Gave them a room to spend the sleep in while they were here. They took care of our tickets. Our tickets were about $60 each. Yeah. So it was a perfectly reasonable trade. Hotel room. Saved them on a hotel room. They bought the tickets.

[41:06] Apparently, when they were planning on bringing it back, and that's been undone, and there's some chaos there, the cheapest tickets were going to be $250. Christ. So that's a pretty tremendous jump from like five years ago, five, six years ago or something. Yeah, I have no idea. It was pre-pandemic. I think it was like six, seven years ago maybe. But yeah, still a huge, huge jump. But they've been really struggling to sell tickets even in smaller and smaller venues. And, you know, this is another worrying sign because people are becoming very price sensitive. It used to be WrestleMania, you know, or that he could basically charge whatever they wanted for tickets without worrying about it. People would show up. And that's less the case right now. Yeah. So that also is a worrying sign. And going back to that article about the age of uncertainty that we're in right now, no one really knows where we're going to be in a month, two months, three months.

[42:08] And I think that's got everyone a little bit spooked and that includes us. Yeah. On that note, everyone, thank you very much for joining us for the past 45 minutes or so. Greatly appreciate it. Please check out more Haunt Weekly at hauntweekly.com, Haunt Weekly on Facebook, and YouTube.com slash hauntweekly. Until next time, I'm Jonathan. I'm Crystal. And we will see you all next week.