Facing Fear: Lessons from Horror Movies

In the flickering darkness of our deepest fears, where shadows dance and nightmares take flight, we gather to explore the stories that make our hearts race and our souls tremble. Yet in the end we conquer and persevere. From the depths where Jaws lurks beneath the waves, to the madness filled halls of the Overlook Hotel, through the relentless pursuit of Michael Myers into the blood soaked comedy of Evil Dead 2. And on a moonlight night in London where an American werewolf prowls. These masterpieces of terror speak to us in the language of nightmares, teaching us about courage, survival and the price of human folly. Tonight we invite you to step through the veil with us. Leave your comfortable certainties at the door. For in these tales of terror you find not just scares but significance. There's horror, but victory of overcoming. After every dark night, there is a bright new day ahead. I'm Curtis, my hero in times of trouble. Over there is Joe Teague and we are dudes in progress.

Wow, Kirk.

Happy Halloween, man.

The only thing missing from that opening is Vincent Price's voice. Yeah, I may very well have to sleep with the lights on tonight.

Dude. I know. Are you afraid of the dark, Joe?

No. No, I was when I was a little kid.

Yeah, me too.

But no, not really. When I was a little kid I. My mind certainly wandered and yeah, I had my times where I was afraid of the dark as a little kid. And you know what I would say, honestly as an adult, there were probably a few times here and there that I creeped myself out after maybe a scary movie or whatever it might be that made my mind wander. I would say absolutely. There's been times as an adult that I think I'll just. I think I'll leave the light on tonight.

I think as I get older I get higher anxiety for these movies and these things that are scary. I am the person. My kids love it because they love sneaking up on me and make me jump a mile. I get startled. Really crazy.

Well, I genuinely like scary movies. Me and my middle daughter have gone to more than our fair share of scary movies together. My oldest daughter, I don't think she likes them too much. And my youngest daughter, she kind of likes him a little bit. My wife loves them, I love them. We have a. I don't know if it's healthy or not, but we have a pretty steady diet of not necessarily horror movies, but we have a few that we like, just generally scary movies. My wife loves the paranormal and she loves that kind of stuff. Hauntings and UFOs and all of those things. Bigfoot and that kind of cool stuff. She loves that stuff. And, yeah, I like it, too.

My wife is a big fan. She's always had fun with the kids when they were little. And my oldest son Harry is huge into this. Matter of fact, he does a podcast called Sick Face. Now he's done three episodes, all about scary stories. So I guess she had a real influence on him growing up. And she loved to spook the kids, even probably more than we should have when they were little.

That's all right. What's childhood without a little mental scars, right?

People love this holiday, the Halloween. So if you're listening to this, it's gonna appear on your POD feed a little after Halloween. But let's extend it. Let's have some fun. And even maybe there's lessons that we can learn from some of our top horror movies. I've got five that I'm gonna talk to, some of the lessons we can learn from them and talk through some of these movies. These are definitely five of my favorites.

Well, I was. I really was surprised at this. This episode. The theme of this episode, Kurt. It was quite challenging. I'll be honest with you. I have my list of movies, and first of all, it was difficult to come up with a list of movies. And I have six here. And maybe we'll talk about all six, maybe not. But I have a bunch of honorable mentions that I won't. That I won't bring up because I want to keep to the theme. But when you challenged me to come up with some kind of redeeming value from each movie, some kind of lesson, I'm like, oh, boy. What are you doing to me, dude? And you know what, Kurt? I was able to come up with some redeeming value from each one of these movies. And when you hear my list of movies, you'll say, what the heck, man? And I see. I know your list as well, so this should be an interesting conversation.

You always help me get through these. You got that gift. So let's start. This one's probably one of my favorites. I remember when you. Probably as old of me as me, we've talked about this before, that when we were growing up, we had three channels on the television, maybe a couple more. But then cable TV came out, along with home box office. And I think this was one of the movies that I first wanted to see. And it has scared to death to me. It's scared me ever since. And that's Jaws. And still one of those.

You mentioned Jaws a couple times, Kurt. And I'm always surprised that you Put it in the. It always shows up for you. So this must have had a huge impact because we've. I think we. We did an episode on motivational movies or inspiring movies that made me want to be a better human. And Jaws appeared on that list. I'm like, wow, this guy is into it.

Yeah. This is one of my favorites. Like you were saying though, to find some things that we can learn, some lessons. This was kind of interesting. I thought Jaws did bring up some ideas for me, but one is facing fears. And these characters that go after go into the ocean where the shark lives. He's the domain. He's the. He's. He's the king of the ocean. And he's. What. How big is he? He's 20 footer, 25ft long, something like that.

Huge.

And he's already taken out several people. But facing your fears, of course, this is a. Is something you always want to do. How do you face your fears? Except for Head On. So they go out into the ocean, the three of them, trying to take out Jaws.

Yeah, I like Jaws. And the Richard Dreyfus character is cool in that. And that the captain who just is relentless.

Right, Captain Quint. Yeah.

You talk about hyper focused and relentless. That's a good movie. That's a good movie.

There is some great interaction between these characters. That's one of the reasons it's not just a horror film. Yeah. It'll make you jump a few times and it's got a lot of tense moments. For sure. It's well done. That dynamic between Richard Dreyfus character, Hooper, his name is, and Captain Quentin is the old school of shark hunting where Richard Dreyfus Hooper has got all the new. He's kind of wealthy, I think you learn his boat and all the technical equipment that he has. So they try it all. Which really I was thinking about teamwork and collaboration. Even though they are very different, they do collaborate quite a bit. When Captain Quint's failure to capture the shark and they send Hooper down in the shark cage with his little poker. He's Captain Quinn. So the cage goes into the water. You go into the cage. The sharks in the water.

Yeah.

But yeah, there's a lot of teamwork and collaboration going on, which of course is a good thing to do.

So let's go back and forth between lists. Okay. All right, I'll do my list. This isn't necessarily in any kind of order, but I just want to get this one out of the way and never talk about it again. Okay, I will talk about it again. But I want to talk about it very little. When I was 10 years old, I watched the movie that scared me more than any other movie in my life. And that's the Exorcist, right? Now we know what the Exorcist is about. It's about this young girl named Reagan who was possessed by a demon. And her mom turns to these priests to perform this exorcism and all junk breaks loose, right? It just scares me, man. The whole idea of it scares me. The idea of the movie scares me. The music scares me. Seeing if I catch a glimpse of Reagan's possessed face, I gotta turn off. There is something about that that has deeply affected me. But I was able to read a little bit about the Exorcist and understand a little bit about the Exorcist without watching the movie to try to go back and figure this out. A list of horror movies would not be complete without me putting it the Exorcist on it. Even though I will never watch it again and I haven't watched it since. I can't have a list like this without the Exorcist on it. But there is some redeeming qualities, right? To the Exorcist. Number one, faith can be powerful. Faith can be powerful. Sometimes believing in yourself, believing in something bigger like God, is exactly what you need to push through. And that's what the mother had. That's what these priests had to fight this demon out of Reagan. And faith is important. Faith can be powerful. And I'm not just talking about faith in God, but faith in something that you so strongly and you're so strongly believe in and you're so devoted to that you would go through what these people went through for their sake of their kid. The next one is love means sacrifice. Now think about this. These fathers, especially the Father Charis, I think his name was, these, they go through so much for Reagan to save this little girl, this innocent little girl, they go through so much for her. And it means making sacrifices. And sacrifices were made without me spoiling the movie. If you've seen the movie, you know what sacrifices were made. But faith can be powerful and love means sacrifice. I think those are true redeeming values that you can get from the Exorcist. And I don't want to talk about it anymore. Move on.

Those are great ones that you came up with. Like you said, you don't think so thinking about these movies because they are quite traumatic. That is one I don't care to watch too often because it is so tough. Maybe I will. Maybe just because of this.

Episode two is too often. Please move on.

Those are great ones. This one was probably the one that scared me the most. I did see this in the theater when it come out. The original Halloween film. And I think a lot of these films, that one just opened up a whole slew of slasher movies that became very popular. But this was the original one for me, that one. Talk about jump in the theater. I remember going with a girlfriend. She laughed. I was so embarrassed. I jumped so far. When that kid comes swinging down from the closet, I nearly had a heart attack.

Yeah. The Halloween movies aren't movies that I got into until they were well out of the theaters and streaming. But they're pretty good, man.

Yeah.

If you let yourself like these movies, like anything else, if you just let yourself watch them, let yourself experience the movie for what it is. These Halloween movies are pretty daggone good, man.

Yeah. The original is one of my favorites. I don't even really stay up to date with all of them. But Lori, the main character, talk about courage and survival and resilience that she goes through. And boy, you're really cheering for her. You're so glad when she's at the end of all these killings of her friends, she's the one that survives at all. And yeah, so you gotta have. You gotta find some inner strength. And during difficult situations and personal challenges you gotta meet them head on. And she certainly did that.

Yeah. These later wrap up movies are of Halloween are pretty good, right?

Yeah. Franchise certainly has done well.

No doubt. So what were your lessons?

Courage and survival is that is the first one for her and if you.

Mentioned that already, I'm sorry I missed it.

I did. Another one is trauma. Think of Michael Myers and they give the backstory of how he became Michael Myers. And we can't disregard or you get some empathy for him or anyone that has been through trauma and how important it is. How mental health issues are so important. And boy do we know it all too well in our society today.

I want to talk about the Silence of the Lambs.

Oh boy.

Do you remember that movie?

Another creepy one. I don't. I've seen it, but I'm not really familiar with it.

Oh man, it's disturbing.

Yeah.

It's about this FBI agent, Clarice Starling.

Yeah.

She's. She actually seeks the help of Hannibal Lecter, who is Hannibal the Cannibal, right?

Yes.

And she seeks this help because they're trying to catch this serial killer, Buffalo Bill. And the psychological Anguish that he puts her through and that she withstands is amazing. And how helpful he is. And movies like this are odd because you, in a weird way, you find yourself not cheering for him, but stay in there and help, man. Stay in there and help. And he has such a weird insight on humanity that. That smacks of truth, that it's just creepy.

Yeah. It's a little warped, though, too, isn't it?

It's so warped. It's so warped. But if I were to pull a couple redeeming values from the Silence of the Lambs, number one, don't use lotion. No, I'm kidding about that. If you know the movie, you know what I'm talking about. And I shouldn't even have said that. Well, here's a good one. Here's a good one. And this may sound simple because there's always a hero in all these movies, right? But be brave. Clarice has to really face some incredibly terrifying situations in this movie. From walking through the house blind as she's trying to find Buffalo Bill, to standing up almost to Hannibal Lecter and not letting him get in her head in such a way that she's not able to do her job. The bravery she had to show was incredible. I don't like that I'm saying this about this movie either, but I think understanding that good and evil are really complex. Like I said before, Lecter's. This guy Kurt is, like, full of charm. He's very charming and he's appropriate, and he's. He's. He has manners, right. And he is almost chivalrous in a way. In a weird way. In a weird, warped way. And this guy's mix of charm and brutality. I don't know what to make of it, but it's in all of us. And we have to have kind of empathy for that to understand people. And I guess that might be another thing from this movie, empathy. When Clarice has to connect with Hannibal Lecter and she has to connect with so many other people just to try to understand what's going on in the mind of Buffalo Bill and what's going on in the mind of Hannibal Lecter. And to connect the dots, I don't know. It's a creepy movie, man. It's weird. And it's not for the faint of heart.

I think some of these, as you're talking about him, he's a fictional character, I believe. Right?

Yeah.

But there have been some mass murderers that fall in that category, right?

Yeah. Yeah. That have Bundy, Ted Bundy, Bundy Yeah. I don't think Jeffrey Dahmer was quite.

In that kind of brilliant people that.

Somehow Ted Bundy was very charming and he would lure people, he would lure women with his charm and.

Right. Wow.

You think this guy was just walking among us and probably well respected among his peers and liked a lot and I don't even want to think about it, dude. But yeah if I had to pull some redeeming value, some lessons from the Silence of the Lambs that would. Those would be it. Bravery good and evil are complex. Empathy, those things.

Good one. This one. Well one from the 80s one of my favorite films, An American Werewolf in London. There's a couple of films in this my list that have a little bit of comedy to it and this is one of them. Have you seen this one?

Yeah, I have. What I remember most about the American Werewolf in London is how groundbreaking it was on its CGI and not CGI but its effects. This special effects. That would be the best way actually these are practical effects not CGI and really good stuff man. Really good stuff. And this is a creepy movie in and of itself.

It does.

Curious to hear what you're.

Even though it has some comedy talking.

To that his friend and. Ah yes. No, I just don't want to. I don't want to visualize it. But what were your lessons from this?

He's got a loss of identity. So David's.

Oh wow.

Yeah, this story, they go. Him and his friend. David and his friend go off to Europe into London or in. They're in the English countryside in the dark and they are. They're attacked by a wolf which we later learn is a werewolf and it kills his friend right in the beginning. But David gets scratched and of course if you're scratched by a werewolf you eventually turn into a werewolf, don't you? Because we know that to be backed.

Yeah, that's scientific. Well known scientific knowledge.

Exactly. And you're right, the. The special effects of him when he really becomes full on werewolf is incredible. Especially was for early 80s I thought but this loss of identity is. David's got this internal struggle and he's losing control and self awareness. He's a little bit lost between as he's moving from human to werewolf to back to human. He's slipping back and forth and he's not sure of who he is. And so it's this psychological theme that just speaks to our fears of losing your sense of yourself. Have you ever lost sense of yourself? That's a horrible feeling.

Yeah, absolutely.

You're losing A little. You thought you were something and you're. Sometimes you doubt yourself.

Yeah, that's hard. That's hard to work with. That's hard to handle when you feel your sense of self slipping away and you feel like you have no control over it. So. Yeah, that's a good point, man. That's a good point.

He feels isolated and alienated because he's turning into a monster and he knows what's happening, but it's hard to share that inner turmoil with others when he's becoming a werewolf.

It's interesting that you say isolation, because isolation is an interesting point that I make about another movie that we'll talk. That we'll talk about when we get there. But I can definitely see that isolation is just.

We know this is extremely horrible. I was just watching television today, and I don't even talk about the particular news story other than someone committing suicide, but. Which is a horrible pandemic we have in this country. And it. It's all. It works a lot around isolation. People that are bullied, that's another thing I can't stand. They're isolated because of bullying, being bullied. But. Yeah, so that's a horrible thing. It's an important thing to recognize and bring importance of that community and support that we all need trauma and guilt that. Yes, you're right. He is haunted by his friend, and his friend comes to him in. It's so Real too. These are. He's having these visions and hallucinations of his friend, and his friend is deteriorating in front of your eyes. He gets.

That's what I was talking about. I wanted you to bring it up, but. Oh, my gosh.

It's just his clothes are all ripped and his skin is falling off, which sounds. It is horrible, but it. The way they do it, it has a little bit of comedy going on there too. But he's talking that guilt that he feels, and his friend is telling, you gotta kill yourself, dude. You can't be running around London terrorizing and killing others. But, yeah, so that whole thing of dealing with the trauma and guilt is an important thing that we all sometimes have to deal with. Great movie.

My next movie is the Ring. Do you remember this movie? Have you seen this movie?

No. I don't know if you have seen this one.

Not a lot of people have seen this movie and not a lot of people want to see this movie. It's just not one of those movies that I think it was very popular. And it's a remake from either a Japanese movie or a Chinese movie, probably Japanese movie, but it's a remake. And it is creepy, dude. It's about watching this videotape. And if you watch this videotape and the videotape has the shape of a ring on it, and then you have this girl, her name's Samara in the movie. And when you're. The idea behind watching this videotape is you die after watching the video. Seven days after watching the videotape. All right? But what's creepy about it is watching this video and then watching this girl crawl out of the television and it's in. It's enthralling, man. It's engaging. It really does capture you again if you let it. Now, somebody might watch the movies. That's a stupid. Well, just let yourself get into these movies, right? But it's. It's about this cursed videotape. And there's a whole history behind the curse. And this journalist wants to understand this mystery and how to break the curse and all that good stuff, right? It's. It really is a good movie. But when I think about life lessons from this movie or maybe redeeming value or something like that from this. From the movie the Ring. Number one, respect boundaries. Ignoring the rules, messing with things you don't understand, it can be dangerous. Those fences were put up there for a reason that. That. That videotape was hidden away for a reason that. Respect the boundaries. Don't go there. Especially when you're Just don't let your curiosity completely overtake your sense of your sensibilities. Right? Don't go there. Respect boundaries. And the thing about this movie, I don't want to give it away, but I'll just say this. The past matters. The past matters. This curse, it's rooted in past events. It's rooted in stuff that happened. And I'll just. I'll leave it at that. And there are really some unresolved issues that can. That when they bubble up. When they bubble up, can really wreak havoc on your life. So, yeah, if there's some redeeming values, it's respect boundaries. Dude, just don't. You don't always. You don't have to go there. Okay? You don't have to put that tape in. You don't have to do it. And the past matters. Respect the past.

Well, that's a good transition into one of mine. I'm going to skip the one I was going to do, but you just mentioned that. Respecting the boundaries. Have you ever seen the Evil Dead movies? I have.

Not a single one.

I got them yeah, you could do number one. I first saw Evil Dead 2, then had to go back to watch Evil Dead 1. But most people will say Evil Dead 2 is the one to really. And it's got that same. There's a book, the Book of the Dead and they're in this cabin out in the woods and they read from the Book of the Dead which unleashes all this mayhem on them and evil spirits come flying out. So yeah, there's been again, another huge franchise. The third one was the army of Darkness. Again, really campy too. And some comedy and that. If you have not seen the Evil Dead movies, definitely they're cold.

I don't know how I've not seen them.

Quite honestly, I thought I might hit one that you didn't see before. But Ash is the hero and he's just a regular guy. He works at. Is it called Xmart something? Supposed to be like Kmart. Regular guy who becomes a chainsaw wielding hero. And it just illustrates the potential for personal transformation, resilience in the face of extreme adversity. Yes, he is. He is great actor too, that plays him. Just the way that he portrays the character is fantastic. But transformation and resilience is an important lesson from that one.

I think I'll definitely check these out. They're not movies that I would have watched, right. But heck, Kurt, if you liked it, dude, I'll give it a shot.

I almost put Shaun of the Dead on my list because I saw that during some list I was looking at. Because humor and horror, balancing comedy with terror. These films show the importance of finding lightness even in dark times. Laughter can be a powerful tool for coping with stress and hardship. And yeah, I think that stands out as a theme in the Evil Dead too. Definitely. I think Evil Dead, the first one's more dark. I don't know that there's any of that comedy. It really didn't come till the two, the second one and the third one. So definitely check out the Evil Dead series if you've not seen them. I highly recommend those.

I will, I will. I see that we share one movie on our list, so I'll hold that one till last and I'll go to my next movie, which is the Skeleton Key. Have you seen the Skeleton Key?

No.

That's another good one. It's another good movie that. That'll take you by surprise, right? That'll take you by surprise. Another movie that'll take you by surprise is the Others. And I want to. There are some. I wanted to put the Sixth Sense on here, but I'm not. I wasn't convinced it would be a horror movie, but it's got some brutality, some gruesome scenes in it, some scenes that you would consider horror movies. But I really wanted to try to stay with super scary movies and maybe some unknown movies. Not necessarily unknown, but the Skeleton Key was a pretty popular movie. Just to give you a brief synopsis of the movie, there's this nurse who. She's a hospice nurse and she's hired to take care of this man in his. As he's dying and it's down in Louisiana, she discovers this whole culture of hoodoo. Not voodoo, but hoodoo magic and these really deep, dark secrets that ultimately put her life in danger. And the way this story unfolds. And as you. There's some really creepy scenes as they're playing this old record. Man, that is just. It shivers me now, dude. And so when you just watch the movie, I'm trying to stay away from spoilers, but the end of this movie is really surprising.

Oh, I like that.

Really surprised.

Those kind of movies.

And I do too. I like those kind of movies. As I try to. As I think through this movie, one thing that I would say about it is the one lesson I would get from it is respect others belief. When you disregard other people's traditions and beliefs and you are. You don't respect them, it can have some serious consequences because it doesn't allow you to recognize the person. It doesn't allow you to recognize the humanity of the person. And if you don't respect their traditions and beliefs, it can blind you to who they really may be. And I'll just leave it at that. Okay? And I don't. I think you talked about. I think you talked about this before. But also you need to hold on to your identity. You need to hold on to who you are. You need to stay grounded to your true self. And if you don't, if you've not seen this movie, you'll understand when I. When you do see why holding onto your identity is an important aspect and is an important lesson from this movie. You got to hold on to your identity even when others from the outside are trying to influence you. You have to hold on to who you are. And this kind of goes back. I guess this lesson is very similar to the other lesson, which is from the Ring. Ignoring roles, right? Ignoring the roles. Don't mess with things you don't understand. Be cautious when exploring the unknown. This character, her name's Caroline and it gets her into a lot of trouble. And it doesn't quite end up the way you would hope it would end up. But listen, man, when you're exploring the unknown, I'm all about taking chances and taking risks and moving forward. But man, you gotta be cautious and know when to turn around.

Well, if they did that, there'd be no movie.

So check out the Skeleton Key. It's a really neat movie. Another movie with a twist in it is a movie. I think it stars Nicole Kidman called Others or the Others, which is a haunting movie which has a really neat twist to it. But this is the Skeleton Key. Check it out. It's. It creeps me out just thinking about it. There's a scene where they're playing records. This one particular hoodoo record that is like a prayer or a curse. And it's just. Oh man, it's creepy.

We learned from these movies you really should run away from danger. Yes, yes, we did have one that we shared. Interesting enough. And how could you have a list of horror films that are your favorites without a Stephen King movie? Yep, I think this one's the best one. The Shining.

Hands down the best Stephen King movie. Yeah, well, you got the Stand and some of those other ones which are really good, but this one is one takes the cake.

Dude.

This one is good. This one is good. The Shining is one of those movies that I've seen a dozen times and it creeps me out every time I see it. Like the first time I saw it.

What is so creepy about it is it. It's really a quiet movie. Right? You're talking about a lonely place. The Overlook Hotel. We already talked about isolation and insanity. And what's more isolated than this hotel? This huge hotel that they're taking care of a family of three, Jack and his wife and their young boy. Really? In the middle of the winter.

Right.

Colorado, I think, is where it's.

It has all those aspects. It's isolated, there's no help around. They're completely self dependent. They're dependent on each other. So if something goes awry, they have. They only have each other plus this massive hotel. The scene, everything about it, everything about the way this movie was made makes it creepy.

Of course, the great performance of Jack Nicholson.

Hedge Mays. Yeah, right. The big maze, which plays a critical role in the movie if you've seen it.

Right.

Jack's. Jack's flow descend into insanity. And where did it come from? Now we learn a little bit about it, right? The. This hotel is clearly haunted.

Yes.

Yeah. It's just. What in what Performances by Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall and I can't remember that little kid's name, but Scatman Crothers is in this movie.

Yes.

Wow. What a good movie.

Really, only four characters.

Yeah. Yeah, you're right. I think that's it.

Just those four characters.

Well, there is the butler, right? The guy that kind of shows up. Yeah, look at the ghost caretaker, the ghost and all those. But yeah, the Shining. Man, what a good movie.

Things I pull from it. Inner demons. Jack struggle. He's got inner demons. He's got traumas. There's some alcohol they talk about and some things that he did in his family that got him in trouble. And then it's the family dynamics. It's the deteriorating relationships between him and his wife and the just family issues. So there's two big ones right there. Inner demons and this dysfunctional family. You learn trying to work things out in a lonely, isolated place all winter long.

It's interesting that you bring up isolation, because that's my first takeaway from the Shining is isolation. It isn't good for anybody. Being cut off mentally, physically, can make the smallest issues even worse. Don't isolate yourself if you're going through struggle, if you're going through hard times, if. Don't put yourself in a position where you're isolated mentally or physically. Now we all can use some time that we're alone and we are more introspective. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about isolating yourself. Having nobody to be with, having nobody to bounce life off of, having nobody to experience your woes with you and. And help you as you're going through them. Isolation is not good for anybody. And that's. And these people are isolated.

This film more than any of them. Yeah, definitely.

They're isolated.

Teaches us that.

Yeah. And my next lesson, and this is an interesting one, is mental health matters.

Yeah.

Jack is nuts. He's crazy, man. And.

And he gets crazier.

This story just shows that you got to take care of your head, man. You got to take care of your mental health. You have to take care of what you're. What you're allowing yourself to. What insanity. You're allowing your mind to go into what you're allowing yourself to dwell on, what you are focused on. You got to take care of your mental health. And Jack didn't clearly. Right. And he just let himself be influenced and go down these depths.

The ghosts took advantage of that, didn't they? They fed on his mental health problem.

His mental Health, his insecurities, his feeling, his feelings of being inadequate, all of this stuff, they fed off of that. But he let them in his head. And had he taken care of his mental health a little more? I know this is maybe a stretch, but mental health matters for sure. That's really. So my takeaways from the Shining is as scary of a movie. It is. Listen, don't isolate yourself and take care of your head.

Yeah. So if you have mental health problems, you have deteriorating family. Don't take a job in Colorado overlooking a hotel.

Right.

For the winter time when you're going to be isolated.

Right.

There's a lesson learned there.

There you go.

I think that was all of our films.

Awesome conversation, dude. This was a lot of fun.

It was supposed to be fun.

This was a lot of fun.

It was a little challenging to see if we could find some redeeming qualities from.

It was challenging. I'm looking at these movies and I'm like, okay. And then I. You got to have to think back at the movies. Yeah. Remember certain things. And on each one of these, I did a little bit of reading into the movie so I could at least come with it. Come with into this conversation intelligently. But wow. It just goes to show you, Kurt, that you can find the good in just about anything, can't you?

They accentuate the bad so you can think about what would be a better way to handle some of these things.

Right. Good stuff. Thanks for bringing this, man.

Really.

This was a good one. This was a good.

Thanks, pal.

A little lighthearted, but still, it helps us. It helps us make progress. And that's what we're all about.

That's what Halloween's supposed to be. I think we've all. We all have fun scaring each other. I don't know why that's fun. And people get into it. They have the Halloween haunts that started a few years ago in a theme park we have close by where the ESPN is in Bristol. And they started doing. I remember they started doing it. Now everybody has to have these Halloween nights. And they make big money either for charity or for. To keep those places open late in the season. You do that, you go to what's your King's Island. Kings island does that. Right.

The busiest days of the year are the Halloween haunt days. If you go to Kings island on any Friday in October, Friday night, it's packed, as packed as it's. As it ever is. Shoulder to shoulder packed.

And why is that fun? They have these dark tunnels and they have all this scary Spooky stuff and actors that jump out at you and you just laugh your head off.

Right.

When your family gets scared to death.

And some people are genuinely scared. Right. And you have to have to watch people like, man, this person's going through some real trauma.

That's right. I suppose so. But those have been very popular over the years.

So again, thanks, man. Thanks for bringing this one to the table. I thought it was a heck of a lot of fun.

All right, let's wrap it up. What's your win for the week?

My win for the week is very similar to my win for the week last week and it will be very similar to my win for the week next week. And I'll explain to you why anytime I get to spend time with my grandkids, that's going to be a win. So as we know through 80 something, 90 something episodes, that's going to happen. And this weekend I went to my daughter's house. We celebrated Halloween up there. We walked around with the kids as they were dressed up and they did their trick or treat. They do their trick or treat in their neighborhood on the last Saturday of October and they do it from four, like from four to eight or from four to seven. That three.

That's a good idea. Yeah.

And I like it because number one, it's on a Saturday. You don't have to worry about the next day. And number two, you get to see the kids in their costumes.

Right.

And that's always cool.

Yeah, it's really int the middle of the week.

What a blast. What a blast. And I took bags of silly string up there with me and that's always a hit. And played spooky music out of the back of my car. That was fun. So, yeah, we had a really good time weekend at my daughter's house. So that was fun. That's my win for the week.

I love it. I had a similar Friday. We did some babysitting from my grandson, Johnny B. On Friday. That was a. That's one of my wins, too.

I love that. That's the nickname he has.

You know, I'm trying to make it Johnny B. Stone. I played the song for him. Johnny B. Good. And I danced with him. He was getting into it. He laughs, bounces around in his bouncy chair. Yeah.

Awesome.

That was good. Helped my son and his wife out. But I had a huge win when I finished the luxury vinyl floor the install in my bathroom. All right.

Nice, man. Nice.

Did it.

I know you sent some pictures out and I did. What an awesome job. You did. It looks great. Did you get your toilet installed?

No. Let's not get too crazy, Joe.

I was thinking, great job on the floor, man. It looks great.

I don't know if like in fantasy football, which I really love doing, when your player, sometimes they get injured during the game or they get injured during the week and they put a little Q, which means questionable for the week game coming up. Let me tell you something. After installing vinyl flooring and being on my knees and down on the floor, I am questionable for this coming weekend. I got to put. The first. Next thing we do is put the board around the floors. What do you call that? The trim around the floor? Yeah, the trim and put that in then. I've talked to a plumber. He's going to come up. I have a friend who's a plumber who's going to help me with the toilet.

Perfect.

So I'll probably do that next. The week after I get the baseboards done. That's what. That's the word I was looking for.

Congratulations, man. I saw a picture that looks great.

Very excited. I essentially did most of it from morning till night till dark. And I just had a couple more rows to do on Sunday morning, which my wife yelled at me because I was banging those into Place at 5 o'clock in the morning. Once you get motivated and you just. I was like, get. I got the hang of it and it was coming together. I did the hard parts on Saturday. But yeah, I was exhausted. But it was. I'm really excited about that being done. Nice getting close. The whole thing being done. Toilet in the vanity left.

Perfect. Yeah. Like I said, the picture looked good. I have an interesting resource. Yeah, it's a little different. It's a little cryptic. You'll have to do some work for it. Okay.

All right.

Go to. Do you have Netflix?

I do.

Okay. If you are on the. If you have a way to do a lookup in Netflix, just type in on your lookup 8711. 8711. It's a special code. All right. If you're watching Netflix on your computer or something like that, just go to netflix.com browse genre8711 netflix.com browser/genre/8711. I'll put that link in in the show notes and it'll take you to an interesting place. Check it out.

Oh, you're not going to tell us. This is scary.

Check it out. Netflix.com browse/, genre.

I will do that.

I'll put the link in today's show.

Notes are done recording. Very cryptic. I love it. It's going to be a surprise. So my resource tip or hack is first of all, use. I know Joe and I talked about this with our friend Clay when I was thinking about what kind of flooring to do that would be easy for me to install as a do it yourself or luxury vinyl flooring. Got it from Home Depot. But here's some tips that I learned through watching some YouTube videos. You can buy like a kit for doing this installation with some gap pieces that are plastic. They're a pain to get the stay on the. You gotta tape them there. They're small. But if you use scrap pieces of the vinyl flooring for the ends so you get that quarter inch gap because that's where your baseboards are going to be. And you want to have a little bit of space for expansion anyway. But use scrap pieces that you're going to have anyway because you're cutting and that worked really well. And then when you're banging, you take another scrap piece because it's got the formation that you need to hook in there and you bang it and you got to really give it a pretty good hit with a rubber hammer. But using a scrap piece instead of using one of those kit things really worked really well for me. And it really will snap in tight into place on both ends, whether you're working through that. And then I still needed to buy that little flooring kit and I. They had a. There's this pull bar, they call it, for vinyl flooring and you really need that at the end when you're finishing up and you don't have enough space to get your rubber mallet in there. You don't have any room because you're going to hit the wall. You buy this little pull bar. Harbor Freight had one. Boy, they got some great tools down there. There's a good resource for you right there. We just got one in town and they had a kit for $10. It had some of those other things that I didn't end up using. But it had the pull bar for 10 bucks and I needed that for the last couple rows and that worked fabulously. So all those tips came through a couple of YouTube videos I watched. And that's really the key to doing that job. Measuring, right, cutting and that kind of thing. All you need is a box cutter to cut the vinyl. Surprising. One or two scrapes with the box cutter and they snap and you're good to go.

Snaps right off.

Yeah. Or snaps pretty Amazing stuff.

Yeah, it's good stuff. Yeah. Luxury vinyl flooring. I like it a lot. And what's nice about it is it's not cheap, but it's not terribly expensive. It's not terribly expensive, but it's certainly not cheap. You're going to make an investment. But what I like about it is if you decide you want to change, it comes up pretty easily.

Oh, yeah. If you make a mistake, it comes up pretty easy.

If you make a mistake, it comes up pretty easily. If you want to change something around you, if you need to replace a plank, it comes up pretty easily for sure. And. But when it's down, it's solid. You got to start with a level floor. But yes, it's solid, man. It's right there.

I like. The key to success is make sure you got a clean level floor. I did some work. I did a lot of work to get that. Get to that point. You're right.

Great, great resource. Thanks for the advice on that.

You can do it. Give it a try. Mine was a small area, too. I have a 25 by 25 family room. I do not want to do that.

That would be quite the project.

It would take a long time. What's your quote for the week, Joe?

Of course, my quote comes from one of the movies that I talked about. And if you think about this quote, it makes perfect sense. It comes from the Shining. If you remember the scene in the Shining, Jack is typing on his typewriter. He's just typing away. And I think he's. And in fact he's there to concentrate on writing a book, if I remember. So he's typing away and you think he's typing, typing, typing, typing, typing. And his wife goes to look at it and it only has one sentence on it. All work and no play makes Jack a doll boy. All work and no play makes Jack a doll boy. Thousands of times on sheets of paper. All work and no play makes Jack a doll boy.

All winter doing that.

Now think about that. Think about just that quote. Boy, how, how right that is. If all you're doing is working and that's all you're focused on is work, work, work, work, work. You're not really good to many to anybody else other than yourself. You may be providing. You may be giving income to the household. You're not living much of a life. You're kind of dull. You're kind of dull. All work and no play makes Jack a doll boy.

I think it makes you a crazy boy, too.

Yeah, absolutely.

Isn't that the point? When she figures out he's lost it.

Oh, yeah. Maybe it's when he sticks his head through the bathroom door and says, here's Johnny. Right?

Yeah.

I think I want to go back and watch that movie. I know it's a good one.

It'll be on the television if you got cable or streaming services, for sure. Check that out.

So there's my quote. I like all work and no play makes Jack a doll boy.

I just value balance. That is a huge one. We've talked about values, balance in your life. So important. But again, that's got a little bit of a humorous tone to it.

Sure does.

His character, he's crazy, but there is a little humor going on in a sick sort of way throughout this movie.

Those twins, man. I can't get those twins out of my head either.

Yeah, creepy. Mine's pretty short. I know how Joe likes the short quotes. This one comes from Chief Brody and Jaws. Everyone knows it. You're gonna need a bigger boat.

Absolutely. Yes.

And the. The. The. The blood has flushed out of his face. He's completely. Because he's just seen the Jaws go by the boat and no one else has seen them yet.

So where's the wisdom in that quote? If you can glean a piece of wisdom from that, you gotta be prepared.

For tough times or you gotta be prepared for the unexpected. And you gotta be resource. You gotta be resourceful to tackle those big challenges. So that's the lesson to learn there.

Because sometimes they went out with a little boat.

That little boat. That boat is little.

When I read that quote, I think, this is Chief Brody. He's looking at the situation exactly as it is.

Right.

You're going to need a bigger boat.

So they get a look at.

Be prepared and be willing to look at the situation exactly as it is. Good stuff. Wow. What a great. What a great. What a great episode.

Kurt. That was fun.

Let's go ahead and wrap up. Our website is dudesinprogress.com dudesinprogress.com if you want to reach out to Kurt or me. We mentioned a lot, several occasions on last episode about our coaching services and what we're doing as a side hustle and some of that stuff, and we definitely will explore that in the future. But if you want to reach out to us about the show, about our coaching services, about anything that we do, we would love to talk to you. We'd love to have you on the show. If you have a. If you have a subject that you want to talk about or bounce off of us. We certainly want to be here for you. Dudesudesinprogress.com dudesudesinprogress.com so remember, if we're watching movies, don't. Don't charge into the danger, right? You don't have to charge into the full of farm utensils to try to get away from the killer, Right? Run away. You don't have to run away perfectly, but run away, right? Make progress away from the danger. Because progress is better than perfection. You gotta keep moving forward.

Yeah. Let's live to fight the battle somewhere down the road.

Show. We'll do that, man. Talk to you soon.

Survive to fight another day.

That was a good episode, man.

Thanks.