Neighbors From Hell

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[00:01:43] And what happens when they snap? What happens when that pounding on the Facebook page or somewhere on the internet or if you're like Scott and Forrest, you just stumbled across it and then slacked us to be like, what the fuck is going on? Yeah, that was weird. That was a weird text to get because I didn't know either. So a few weeks ago, there was a dark beer celebration in downtown Los Angeles. And I wanted to go. So I did what I

[00:03:02] always do when I go downtown. I was walking, this is pretty weird. I should take a picture. So I took a picture on my phone and watched it for a little bit longer to see. I was like, oh, will it like zip away like a UFO and all that stuff? And it didn't move. So, you know, I was running late already. So I went the rest of the way to the train

[00:04:21] and didn't really think much of it

[00:04:22] until a few hours later, while I was at this beer fest,

[00:04:25] I was on Reddit and, if I was reading an article

[00:05:40] and the witnesses were like a screenwriter,

[00:05:42] the other guy was a director.

[00:05:44] Oh, for real? In the article?

[00:05:45] Yeah, one of the other guys, yeah, I mean, look, man, I don't have a headshot. I'm not a female. You know what? Yeah. I mean, I think the only known photo of me, like for scared all the time, I think currently is me brushing my teeth. And until like a day ago, my personal Instagram profile picture was the Hooters Awe driving a Camaro.

[00:07:01] So I wouldn't say I have anything kind of reputable.

[00:07:04] I don't know. Anyway, I don't know how they found it,

[00:07:06] but they did run it. They did link the podcast.

[00:07:08] Mention the sky. It was sort of far from me, but like just everything about like the speed it's going,

[00:08:20] the non-movement was all so weird.

[00:08:22] And I was having a dart in the back of my house

[00:08:25] and I looked up and I looked at it.

[00:08:26] I was like, oh, it's really, really weird.

[00:08:27] And I went to not take the picture, but there was like, I don't know if it's an internal stigma or just a like, ah, whatever, it's just another weird thing in the sky. But yeah, I felt a similar, I almost didn't, I would have been kicking myself when I saw the Air Force One stuff. Yeah, cause I was kicking myself when I saw that other people talking about it

[00:09:40] and I didn't have an ability to like jump into that conversation

[00:09:43] other than like, hey guys, you don't know me,

[00:09:44] I promise I saw it too.

[00:09:45] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:09:46] I wish I had a photo, but hey, This episode is brought to you in part by, yeah. Yeah, this episode is brought to you in part by Right Bloody Publishing, one of the country's most prolific and important poetry publishing houses. And they have given us a few of their titles to give away. So we decided we'd run an end of the year contest. Given the subject matter of today's episode and the fact that it's terrible neighbors

[00:11:00] and almost everyone has had one, I think it's appropriate to make this all work together.

[00:11:05] So here's what we're thinking.

[00:11:07] If you want one of these Right Bloody books... Just as an aside, I love when someone publishes an oral history of a random contest from the 90s. One of those ones that's like, if you collect enough box tops and mail in, you can be an extra Nightmare on Elm Street 4, or some kid won something on Double Dare, on Nickelodeon, and they'll go back and find out, did they actually receive the prize that they

[00:12:21] were told they were going to get and was it worth you had received that attention? Oh my god, I would have been, I mean, I might have become president, I don't know. But the other more realistic thing is like I'd be at a bar being like the half pipe at our high school was rat. Like I'm still looking for thanks and stuff. Well, yeah, here in this timeline, you get to tell this story to 50,000 listeners instead

[00:13:43] of three guys at the bar.

[00:13:44] So things are going well and it's some that you won't see coming. But we're not gonna fall out of existence. We're still gonna be on all the socials and we'll probably be making some fun stuff to hold you over. You'll still hear from us. Also, don't drink and drive.

[00:15:00] Don't drink and drive this New Year's.

[00:15:03] Ah, fuck, it's about 2024.

[00:15:05] 2024, here we go, baby.

[00:15:06] It's gonna be better than the last.

[00:16:04] year with an exclusive interview with Charlie Piper, writer of Shutter's upcoming film, Destroy All Neighbors.

[00:16:06] Charlie had a neighbor so bad he wrote a movie about it, and that screenplay was so nuts,

[00:16:10] caught the attention of Bill and Ted's Alex Windsor and Mystery Science Theater 3000's

[00:16:14] Jonah Ray Rodriguez. The resulting movie is debuting on Shutter in January and we'll learn

[00:16:19] all about it from Charlie a little bit later on. each other, we've been suspicious of what really is going on next door. There's a whole subgenre of movies about it, most notably Rear Window, but also Fright Night, Disturbia, the Berbs, Summer of 84. You could probably program an entire film festival out of bad neighbor movies.

[00:17:41] And I think that our fears around neighbors comes from the tension between our competing

[00:17:45] desires for safety and weird. It got extra weird when Airbnb became a thing.

[00:19:03] So now I've got people who just show up for a day or two

[00:19:06] and they're like rolling, But this is a very funny thing I heard through the wall and as far as I can tell it was just a yelling match So let's leave it at that. But this guy I can hear their conversation and he yells What happened now? I'm doing this to how it happened what happened to the woman that I love It got super high in the second part was like what happened to the woman?

[00:20:21] And it makes me laugh so hard that he something, like it almost doesn't matter that they're not fighting about you.

[00:21:41] You feel like you're trapped in a fight.

[00:21:44] And it was miserable, but the funniest thing

[00:21:47] was they would have these fights. me going. I honestly think that that might have kind of been what was going on. It was like he would fight and then dream about like, I'm out of here baby. You know, like I think that was. Yeah. As he quietly sweeps up broken glass and stuff from the ground. Yeah. Well, my first apartment was even worse and there was no abuse involved. My first apartment, it was a bungalow in a decent area of LA like nothing.

[00:23:04] It wasn't Beverly Hills of room, like you couldn't stand up or probably even sit up. No, it was like they have crawl spaces. There's crawl spaces. And this person had dragged a mattress under there. And according to the gardener, they had somehow like hooked a coffee machine up to our electricity, which is why the issue had gotten raised with the landlord and the gardener had heard about it

[00:24:21] because they'd discovered this like fire safety issue

[00:24:23] or whatever.

[00:24:24] But you and your girlfriend at the time

[00:24:25] had heard noises and stuff.

[00:24:27] Yes, thereobo's, whatever you want to call them these days. In our yard, staying behind our garage, what have you, and I'm not trying to ruin anyone's day, whatever. If you need to place the crash, just don't be screaming all the time. Sometimes you get real mentally ill ones that they do scream and shout and go crazy.

[00:25:42] That said, do you think the person living underneath your house, when you and your girlfriend

[00:25:46] talked about it, was there any weirdness thinking've experienced. I know, which we will tell stories about all day. Yeah, which is like, we think people should be able to get help, obviously it's a crumbling infrastructure. Infrastructure is not there to help a lot of these people who are very objectively mentally ill.

[00:27:01] So we're not, I don't wanna like rag on that.

[00:27:03] And then it's like, oh, we're making fundamentally ill

[00:27:05] people, but holy shit, have we both experienced You know what, whatever makes me feel good. And what me feel good is listening to Chumba Wamba, super goddamn loud at two in the morning, or just fucking revving my car's engine in the driveway for no reason. Like, I don't know, just people who are loud or they let their dog shit in your yard or anything else. Like anyone who denies the social contract

[00:28:21] and is a selfish piece of shit

[00:28:22] could also be a bad neighbor.

[00:28:24] And they could be a neighbor from hell.

[00:28:25] Like if you're not getting sleep,

[00:28:26] they keep parking behind your garage and paint and stuff and it's just like. Do I know them? You know my friend, you don't know the neighbor, I don't think. Okay. But the fact that this guy makes the worst art in the world doesn't stop him from constantly bringing home the hottest chicks I have ever seen. And every time I'm there, I wanna tell these girls to run because from being at my friend's place,

[00:29:40] I know how this guy acts.

[00:29:41] He lives upstairs, he runs around his apartment,

[00:29:44] knocking things over and shouting like My friend was like, no. And he's like, yeah, I think it's got something to do with the electricity. I'm always scaring this lady talking to me. And I think it's the electricity. They need to fix the electricity. And she was like, what the fuck? She's like, no, I've never, yeah, I've never, I've never heard her. So I'm waiting, I'm counting down the days.

[00:31:01] That's, and he has his fridge hooked up to her wifi too.

[00:31:04] It's also connected to her wifi.

[00:31:05] Probably.

[00:31:06] I mean, look, I don't-

[00:31:07] Is there anything he won't connect to her wifi? who's doing the sound of struggle and Rick Fairwoo's. People downstairs are like, ah, it's just Jacob being Jacob or whatever. That's true. So it's a great plan, great move, great move. Yeah, I might use that at my next place. We'll see. Make them think you're crazy. Don't do that. So all these people seem like true lunatics, but we don't really know how crazy they are.

[00:32:21] We just know the experiences we've had with them.

[00:32:23] We do know though that there are some neighbors in history would be doing this, I texted her mom and I was like, hey, what's the story with BTK or whatever? And she told me that yeah, he lived about a mile up the road and this is her quote that he actually let my friend Katie go in front of him in line at a grocery store on Friday and then the next morning she said his face was plastered all over the news. And so you know, of course,

[00:33:41] my friend was like, holy shit, that's the guy from the media. He used puzzles, he used codes, and he even suggested a few nicknames for himself that didn't get used, but I like that he gave these little test balloons here.

[00:35:02] He suggested the Asphyxiator and the Wichita Hangman,

[00:35:06] which I think Wichita Hangman sounds like a pro wrestler. coward he was, waited for the boyfriend to leave, and then hours later, pounced on Marie and strangled her in bed. And when her body was later found on the side of the road, police actually didn't connect her death to the activity of BTK. The only reason we even know that this happened is because when BTK was caught in 2005-2006,

[00:36:23] he admitted to it, and the details are so fucking creepy. to tape over the windows. He put all the plastic up and once the windows were covered, he laid Marie on the altar and tied her body up in different, very sexually graphic forms of bondage and took photographs of her corpse with a Polaroid camera. On the altar in a church, like full-on any kind of alienation to that group. But like, I wanna say he did some crimes whilst doing that. Like when the kids went to sleep, he'd left. And like did crimes and came back before they woke up. He definitely did. I think the Marine murder, I don't have it in front of me, but I think somewhere in my research,

[00:39:00] I read that he excused himself

[00:39:02] from some kind of Cub Scout, something or other.

[00:39:05] Yeah, I don't know if it was the Boy Scouts or,

[00:39:08] because again, I then the FBI subpoenaed the fucking lab, like her lab results, to test her DNA, which would have been similar enough to his, and since her DNA hit on the DNA they had on BTK, they knew it was him. Like they couldn't subpoena him. Yeah, and I realized I just jumped over a bunch of shit,

[00:40:20] so feel free to fill us in right now,

[00:40:21] like anything I might have jumped over.

[00:40:22] Yeah, well he stopped in the early 90s,

[00:40:25] and then in 2004, the thing that's so crazy about him is it was like, you do not know your neighbor. In fact, the people in his church didn't know their neighbor.

[00:41:40] He ran the church.

[00:41:41] His own wife and daughter didn't know

[00:41:42] that he was a bad neighbor.

[00:41:44] Like this guy is a bad neighbor in sheep's clothing.

[00:41:47] Like it's so crazy. This guy was. Nah, he already called, so you just go right ahead. Over the course of his life in Skidmore, Missouri, Ken McElroy was accused of dozens of felonies by his neighbors, including assault, child molestation, statutory rape, arson, animal cruelty, hog rustling, and burglary.

[00:43:00] That's obviously not in order of most severe.

[00:43:02] No, no, no, that's just-

[00:43:03] Okay, okay, that's just the way it came out.

[00:43:05] He was indicted 21 times, but at age 15, I mean, maybe they just met over time. No, it could be 15. If you ever read anything about Charles Bronson's childhood, some crazy shit and he was like, yeah, so I was 12, I was with a fucking Carney Hooker or whatever, like just so much shit

[00:44:20] where you're like 12.

[00:44:22] Yeah.

[00:44:23] Charles Bronson lived a crazy life prior to his 16th birthday. Treanis parents obviously said get the fuck out of here. You can't dare a 12 year old daughter. Okay, let's not throw obviously's around. We weren't there. But Ken McElroy doesn't take no for an answer. So to help change their mind, he burned down their house and shot their dog. That was his reaction. I don't think that's going to change their mind.

[00:45:40] I didn't like him before.

[00:45:41] Nah, I really don't like him.

[00:45:42] He shot our dog and burned our hometown.

[00:45:44] Well, look, you are stronger will in order to escape charges that had been filed of statutory rape because Alice was the only witness to the crime. Now you know this is something that is a be in my bonnet,

[00:47:01] the child bride laws in this country.

[00:47:04] Yes.

[00:47:04] Now did he do that because by virtue of getting married

[00:47:07] to someone under the foundation of the burned down home and according to court records

[00:48:22] ken mccellroy track them down and brought them back

[00:48:25] waited for tress parents to leave and then burned the house down again and when he showed up at the store with a shotgun and threatened Bobo in camp in the back of the store. And at the ensuing confrontation, McElroy shot bone camp in the neck with a shotgun and somehow this 70 year old man survived. But it was enough to finally get McElroy arrested and charged with attempted murder. Because they finally have a witness he couldn't marry.

[00:49:41] Finally did him in.

[00:49:43] So he almost kills this man.

[00:49:45] He's charged with attempted murder. in camp and I wish that there were quotes attached to those graphic threats because I'm sure it was a spicy. So he's in the middle of ranting and raving. After his appeal hearing gets delayed, a bunch of the town decides they need to do something about this guy. So they beat at the Legion Hall in the center of town with the county sheriff to discuss how to protect themselves.

[00:51:02] So it's amazing the whole town, like while so they met with the sheriff at the elk sludge and he was like, honestly, nothing we can do. The guy seems too powerful with each child bride he acquires, he grows that much stronger. Yeah. There's nothing we can do. It's reverse Scott Pilgrim.

[00:52:21] Yeah, I suggest what you do as non-deputized citizens of Skidmore, tavern, the DNG where McElroy was drinking. They filled up the bar, but the crowd did not phase Ken McElroy. He finished his drinks, he bought another six pack to go, left the bar, got in his truck with Trina, and the crowd followed. Wait, so you're saying the crowd came into the bar, the crowd meaning the town? Yes.

[00:53:40] They all went in the bar and did they make their

[00:53:43] presence known in the sense of like,

[00:53:45] we're up to no good or they just like go to the bar

[00:53:47] and like now all of a sudden he feels like

[00:53:48] there's a lot of people here. who has named names is Trina, no one else will talk, but when this all happened, the DA declined to press charges, and there was apparently an extensive federal investigation, too, that also didn't lead to any charges. So basically what you're saying is, this is a man that everyone hated so much that the fucking Sheriff was like,

[00:55:00] I'm gonna leave my gun on my desk,

[00:55:03] and I'm gonna step out,

[00:55:05] and as long as that gun is back on my desk,

[00:55:07] by the time I get back, 22, 23 indictments. What is an indictment? It just means that someone claimed something. Well, yeah, an indictment I think is that there's enough to- A rescue? Put you through the system. But then he always skated, usually because he intimidated witnesses and no one would come talk. Okay, but I'm saying is like, you get like the numbers are adding up. Like you're a fucking chipper, dude.

[00:56:21] And like, you're a chipper,

[00:56:23] racking out like with a fucking

[00:56:25] child bride baby factory that is your fucking house. So don't be that guy. I think the only thing worse than having a monster like BTK or Ken McElroy Type freak as your neighbor is having a neighbor that you might not even know about and you might not know about them because they're living inside your wall Right now, and I'm not talking about stalkers or thieves Those are criminals who have targeted you or your things and they might hide near walls in pursuit of those things

[00:57:44] And I'm not talking about squatters squatters live in empty houses of a rent-free lifestyle in other people's homes. So what they'll do is they break in, they find a hiding spot in the house that's out of the way or relatively unused, and then they come out only at night or when the owners are gone. They'll eat your food, they drink your drinks, they watch your TV, they play your video games, whatever, and then they'll hide back in their spot

[00:59:00] when the owners come home.

[00:59:01] So now, is this something where it's like,

[00:59:04] I'm a very rich person who has a huge fucking house message boards where they share tips for successfully avoiding detection in strangers homes. And this creeps me out. Even posts video of themselves standing over sleeping homeowners for bragging rights. fucking no thank you. No thank you. No, I do not care for that activity. Although I do in my mind, I do desperately hope that you were like, Oh, there's a collection of them, a group

[01:00:24] of them. If they have like Letterman jackets that say like Frogger on the house. He was under the house. But he was plugged into your power. He was plugged into our power. So yeah, he was frogging. Now, I will say that probably would have been like 2010-ish that that happened. So I was curious if frogging was even a thing at that point. Yeah, it might not have been a thing yet, but I imagine that there have been weird motherfuckers

[01:01:41] who have probably hidden in walls, hidden in places,

[01:01:45] done this kind of makes sense like hopping from place to place I think is where that terminology started. But why the pH? Well, it's sort of like fishing on Fishing for hacking. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and there was what was the called when you would when people would hack

[01:04:04] be an endorsement and it would not be a reward however you use it. We definitely wouldn't give you a cool shirt with a happy smiling frog on the front and

[01:04:08] a back that says, number one, Frogger.

[01:04:12] We definitely wouldn't give you that shirt.

[01:04:13] I broke into Chris's house and all I got was this t-shirt.

[01:04:17] We wouldn't give you that t-shirt.

[01:04:20] We wouldn't.

[01:04:21] One of the things I think is actually safe train to get on blah, blah, blah.

[01:05:41] It was like a hieroglyphics for people who rode the rails.

[01:05:44] I wonder if there's like a frogging version of that.

[01:05:47] Like, oh, this house someone got caught frogging in their house. Oh my god. Yeah. And actually there's a, well, any movie I mentioned will get spoiled, but there are one or two movies who have this. So I wanted to, you know, obviously dig up some stories to share with you guys. There's dozens and dozens of cases of this,

[01:07:00] although a lot of them don't quite nail the idea that the pure frog is just out

[01:07:05] for that sweet free rent and nothing else. Uh,

[01:08:02] It's on them for not seeing. Yeah, you gotta be real quiet.

[01:08:04] You gotta be, oh man, you have a silhouette-shaped dress that you just always have in your closet

[01:08:09] and you're like, it must just be that, right?

[01:08:11] It's gotta be my silhouette-shaped dress.

[01:08:13] Yeah, so the article reads,

[01:08:14] A homeless woman who sneaked into a man's house and lived undetected in his closet.

[01:08:18] It says sneaked? I don't trust the circle.

[01:08:20] It says sneaked.

[01:08:21] Now, I don't want to undermine the journalists in Columbus, Ohio, but I'm not sure sneaked is...

[01:08:28] Yeah, maybe it's like hanged That's what I thought. I said compartment, I think of like a cubby, like she's living in a cubby. Yeah, the resident of the home in Cassouia installed security cameras that transmitted images to his mobile phone after becoming puzzled by food disappearing from his kitchen over the past several months. One of the cameras captured someone moving inside his home Thursday after he had left.

[01:09:41] I can't even fucking imagine getting that alert on my phone.

[01:09:46] Because I'm thinking, maybe you with her. There's nothing the emperor can do about it The article ends by noting she'd moved to mattress into the small closet space and even took showers

[01:11:01] It's a chorus said calling a woman neat and clean. I gotta say

[01:12:03] of you fucking do, but I think you would also love, you know, finding your forever for agar.

[01:12:06] There you go, all P.H.s.

[01:12:08] Yeah, finding your forever for agar,

[01:12:10] you would watch the Shaddah of that show

[01:12:12] about like, I heard a scratching,

[01:12:13] I thought it was a raccoon,

[01:12:14] turns out it was a human lady and now we're married.

[01:12:16] She was knocking on the door to my heart.

[01:12:18] Yeah, from the inside.

[01:12:20] Yeah, yeah, she was knocking on the door to my heart

[01:12:22] from the inside, there you go.

[01:12:24] She was waiting for me to open the door to my heart, in a local hospital after breaking her hip during a fall. Now, he had just gotten home, and about an hour after he got home, Peter's neighbors found his body. He'd been beaten to death with a cast iron stove shaker. The neighbors called the Denver police, but the authorities could find no signs of an intruder

[01:13:40] and began what would become

[01:13:43] a fairly significant investigation.

[01:13:46] So this guy's dead. living alone in the same house where her husband was just murdered. And this is where the story gets really good. Because before long, Helen starts to experience strange things, missing human legs. Yeah, human legs. So the cops grab these legs and pull this I got some food, we know each other from the guitar club. Like this doesn't track. This guy, he had plans to beat the shot of this guy and kill him and did it. Maybe, maybe they were competing songwriters. Why would he create a fucking man nest in the attic though? None of his tracks for baby.

[01:17:40] Well that's the thing, I am curious

[01:17:41] if the nest was there first.

[01:17:43] Like if the wife was in the hospital

[01:17:45] and this guy got into the. I get that. True. Especially if Peter's was jealous of how pimped out the Attic nest was. Oh, he's living better than him? He's living better upstairs than he is down there. Him and his wife are eating scraps of what's left behind from the stolen food. You know, they have no shaker, so they're fucking fires garbage. Yep, and Coney's just upstairs.

[01:19:00] He's got a set of turntables with fish

[01:19:03] that live in the bottom of them.

[01:19:04] Oh my God, why?

[01:19:07] Because it's pimped.

[01:19:08] Oh yeah, I forgot that exhibit came as Emperor of this Nest domain, the laws don't apply to me, and killed a man, got arrested for it. Yeah. I just told that story a little faster than you did. Uh, no, it's a good summary, though. Now, if you're thinking a lot of these stories sound like they could be movies, you're not wrong. Like we mentioned at the beginning, there's a whole history of movies about terrible neighbors.

[01:20:20] And today, we are psyched beyond words to bring you an interview

[01:20:24] with the writer of your next favorite movie

[01:20:26] about a neighbor from New Jersey. But don't take it from me, tell us a little bit about yourself. Well, yeah, so I grew up in North Jersey.

[01:21:43] My parents are goofy, weirdo theater people.

[01:21:46] And so they, for better or for worse, I got a subscription. I went to my first fangoria weekend of horrors convention in New York City later that year There are photos of me with Tom Savini as a child like excited. He's just like But yeah, thankfully my parents were so supportive they let me watch whatever I wanted

[01:23:00] They would fast forward the naughty bits, right?

[01:23:03] Because I was a kid but all the gore and the violence that was fine and also I knew about special effects because of

[01:24:01] you know, once you're in a comedy troupe, you end up doing a little bit of everything.

[01:24:03] And I had that latent theater kid energy in me

[01:24:06] from my parents.

[01:24:07] So honestly, yeah, that comedy troupe kept me at Emerson

[01:24:10] more than the classes, more than the film stuff.

[01:24:13] And now, you know, 10 years on or more,

[01:24:17] my focus is in film and animation,

[01:24:20] but I still very connected to those comedy people.

[01:24:23] And yeah, this film is a comedy.

[01:24:25] It's a splatter gore comedy,. He's a button pusher. No one really listens to him. No one really cares about Prague Raw. But he's been trying for years to finish this epic magnum opus album. And then this crazy loud neighbor moves in next door played by Alex Winter from Bill and Ted and freaked.

[01:25:41] And the neighbor is so loud and insane that's what I mean is that both he and I had similar issues. So we just, honestly, we started complaining. And then Josh, like a light bulb, perverbally appeared on set. And he's like, we should turn this into a movie.

[01:27:01] Everyone's had bad neighbor experiences.

[01:27:03] What if we just pool it together

[01:27:05] and just crank it to 11 spinal tap style? Absolutely. And so that's where it started. And I spent about a year and a half, two years writing the early drafts and going back and forth. Right. Before we get too far into the process of making the movie, I want to hear these stories because earlier in the episode, we talked about some of my terrible neighbors and some of Ed's terrible neighbors. But so what was going on? I mean, obviously yours is probably the more like personal one, but with you and Josh,

[01:28:24] what were your neighbors doing?

[01:28:26] Well, both of us had rather unhinged neighbors. He's snorting up and howling and stomping around. Just imagine every classical bad neighbor stereotype rolled into one. He was just a really messed up dude and this went on for a long time. And but it was a similar thing where Josh had a neighbor who was just kind of losing his proverbial marbles.

[01:29:41] And it was just, it's rough, you know,

[01:29:42] because like I never called the police on this guy

[01:29:45] because he was so unhinged.

[01:29:46] I was afraid of what he into too many details with that. You might be a fan. You might be a fan of the show. You don't want to give away too much. Honestly, there is a comical concern that he would find out about the film and be upset. It's weird that you dedicated the film and use his real name to him. Yeah, that that'll be

[01:31:03] on that. You shouldn't have done that. The it is, it's turning pain into art is a, I think it's a life necessity if you're creatively minded. And I especially you said if there's so many people who you were like statistically hate their neighbors,

[01:32:23] it's like death wish when death wish came on board and it was another handshake agreement. It was pretty much, I like this, I'd love to be in it, say I'm attached and let's see if we can raise the budget. And a little bit after he came on board, the first punch-up writer was brought on, this

[01:33:44] wonderful writer's name is Mike Benner.

[01:33:47] He's written for Bob's Burgers. for years until it got resurrected again during the pandemic. And how did that come about? Was it somebody else who bit? Was it another actor? Was it a producer who came on? How did it come back? Did more and more people start to like, by virtue of being stuck at home, really started to notice like, oh wow, neighbors are shit. Oh, I'm sure there was a bit of that, but really it's all thanks to Jonah. He just had a fire in his brain to resurrect the script.

[01:35:03] I think he had done a podcast or something with Alex Winter.

[01:35:06] It was sent to Alex to kind of resurrect it, kind of blend the two drafts together. And then he's a wonderful comedian. Right. His name is Jared Logan, hysterical guy. Nice. And so he was like that final piece, that final key.

[01:36:20] He created a lot of callback jokes.

[01:36:22] He like, he put this writing ribbon on.

[01:36:24] So I just want to be clear that we share this script together.

[01:37:20] which is a word I have. Well, dude, if I was younger or more controlling,

[01:37:22] I might have been, look, I could have easily put my foot down

[01:37:26] and then I'd have been a dumb chump chump

[01:37:28] who wouldn't have had a movie made, you know?

[01:37:30] Like-

[01:37:31] That's maturity.

[01:37:32] Sharing the credit, allowing for a movie, it's great.

[01:37:35] It's wonderful.

[01:37:35] And I can say their version is more entertaining,

[01:37:38] it's funnier, it's still my characters, it's my plot

[01:37:42] and a lot of my scenes are like, the flow is there.

[01:37:45] They're just fucking, this is funnier, this is more engaging. bit like in the trailer. I'm like, oh yeah, that's Charlie. I wrote it in the main characters, an exaggerated version of some of my worst obsessive creative impulses. And here's something that's crazy. So my apartment many years ago, I painted it, the living rooms is kind of calm dark green color kind of museum. I just got tired of all the white. The set designers for the sterile

[01:39:01] neighbors, when I walked onto the set of, yeah, that's me. Like that's my voice, that's my sense of humor. And I think it's really cool. Thank you. I agree. It's been wild. And let me just do another shout out. The special effects were designed by Gabe Bartelos, who's this amazing effects artist. I've worked for him before.

[01:40:20] He did the puppets on my short film Malekastroka.

[01:40:23] I grew up watching his movies.

[01:40:25] He did Frank Hennenlauter's brain damage and Basket Case 2 working on it. Then this is this is gonna be our second stop motion movie this year. We've talked about we had a really good time watching onyx. Yeah, also great creature design. Great creature design. Yeah, he goes by creature kid. I think he's in Colorado. I have a wonder cabinet in my living room because of course I do and it's full of puppets and monsters I built but one of the little I have a little

[01:41:41] sculpture of one of the Mole Man from the 1950s horror film

[01:41:45] that that creature designer designed stop motion. I do because I just I love it. And arguably, that's another reason this film took so long to make because it needed more time and a little bit more of a budget for the animation and the effects. But we we stuck to our guns and I think the end result will stand out all the more because of it. Amazing. It'll probably live longer too. Like I think about this

[01:43:00] all the time, you know, practical effects. Even if something looks hokey or slow or like that's not going to be a theatrical rollout as well. Yeah, it will be in select Alamo draft house theaters across America, starting also on January 12th, going through that weekend, and maybe a little bit into the next week. So it'll be in LA, it'll be in New York City, it'll be in Texas, I think DC area of Virginia. There's a website where you can find more

[01:44:20] info. If you go to watch destroy.com, it'll have all the info on there. Great. Okay, we'll

[01:44:26] put that in the show notes. So yeah, if as of right now, I'm glad that you know what that's referencing because it was alarming to read. Anyway, so we have a thing called a fear tear, and I think Chris will take you through it. Now, we don't have a visual yet. The fear tear is constantly evolving. That's kind of the joke of the first season, is like it's coming next week and it never comes.

[01:45:40] Yeah, so I'll start just to give a sense.

[01:45:43] I would place neighbors from hell fairly high

[01:45:46] on the fear tear, not years. But that said, yeah, I don't like the shitty neighbors. No where I live. And that's to me, like just a problem. Like, I don't know. I'm extroverted in some ways, but I avoid confrontation. Like that's all I do all day. It's try to avoid confrontation. So there's so much cocaine banging around I would put up with before I ever

[01:47:04] felt like I'm going to put myself in a position to a confront someone in B.

[01:48:05] and the fear of if you do something about it, they'll come back. That was my life for years.

[01:48:12] So yeah, it's up there. Also just statistically up there because I think we have all more or less been through it. And now I worry I'm that neighbor because I'm listening to loud German art films

[01:48:18] at night. I'm screaming and yelling and I live on the year it becomes 2019 again? Oh, it's not. Okay. Well, we'll add that to the future. So yeah, with that said, 2023 was a great year for this podcast, especially and in particular and exclusively in the sense that we started it three months ago and were up past 50,000 downloads.

[01:49:41] We've got people on Facebook, on Instagram,

[01:49:44] chiming in and talking.

[01:49:45] We've got a lot more to come. So thank you again everyone so much. Have a wonderful, safe, new year and we will see you in season two.