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You're listening to the Weird Reader podcast, an extension of
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Jason's Weird Reads found on YouTube.
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Welcome, Hello, and welcome.
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To episode fifty three of the Weird Reads Podcast.
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Today, I have a special guest. I've had him on.
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It was fairly recently. I thought it was like a
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year ago, but apparently it was only about six months ago.
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Eric S.
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Brown joins me, and we're going to discuss animal attack
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horror books.
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This is a.
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Passion of Eric's and I was more than happy to
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have them come on and discuss these books with me.
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Eric S.
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Brown is he an American novelist known for writing science
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fiction and horror novels. He lives in North Carolina and
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he has written nearly, if not one hundred and twenty novels.
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Eric is a writing machine, and.
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I'm happy to say that I'm currently writing a book
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with him right now, and it's we're at the.
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Halfway point and it is fun.
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We talk about that a little bit in this episode,
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and we also talk about a lot of different books.
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I am not quite as versed on animal attack horror
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books as he is, but he educates me and I
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had a lot of fun talking with him, so without
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further ado, here we go. Here's my conversation with Eric
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about animal attack books.
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Hello, welcome back to Weird Reads. Today.
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I am joined by my friend Eric S. Brown, and
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today we are going to be talking about animal attack books.
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Now, this is a before actually, before we get into that.
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Can you introduce yourself quickly?
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Eric? Sure? I'm Eric CAS Brown. I'm a writer. I've
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been writing a long time. I'm mostly known for Bigfoot
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books and Bigfoot movie related stuff, but I'd write a
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little bit of everything here and there. That's pretty much.
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Me and animal attack books are They're pretty much a
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passion of yours, aren't they.
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Oh yeah, yeah. I mean I've always loved them growing up.
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But in twenty twenty three or maybe no early twenty
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twenty four, I read Paperbacks from Hell by Grady Hendrix
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and it just kind of rekindled it all for me.
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So I've been on like an animal attack reading bench
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for the last year. And actually, after reading all those books,
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I wrote my own canine attack book, Snarl, that's out
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now from Evil Cookie Publishing, and it's kind of my
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take on the dog subgenre of the animal attack subgenre.
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It's very much like Kujo meets twenty eight days later.
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Yeah, that was a fun book to read. Well, we'll
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talk about it later. That book is that book goes.
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There's one scene in there that will live rent free
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in my in my mind, it involves test in test tns.
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It's going to be in my mind for the rest
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of my life.
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Well, I don't know whether to say I'm sorry or
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thank you.
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But both both are appreciated.
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Yeah, it was an awesome book though. It's really fun.
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So how has your year been since we last talked.
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We talked about a year ago.
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Well, always busy, always busy collecting paper. Vintage horor paperbacks
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has definitely completely replaced collecting comic books in my life.
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I was a comic elector for over forty years. Now
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I just buy the occasional omnibus to read. So and
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now my living room has been taken over by horror
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paperbacks from hell. So you can't tell that from looking
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behind me. Those are still my Marvel omnibuses and Balsargalatric
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and rids Onia stuff. But trust me, the other side
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of living room looks like Grady Hendrix vomited all over
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the place, you know.
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Yeah, the comics way to put that.
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Grady Hendrix. Sorry.
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Do the comics take up a lot of space too?
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I have a second house and another town for the comics.
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Oh wow, Yeah, all the comics were here, we would
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not be able to function, So.
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That's a lot. Yeah too.
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So you've released a few new books since then, including Snarl.
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What are some of the other books that you've released.
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I've done two more big Foot books for Severn Press,
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Sasquatch Nightmare, which is kind of like night Mare on
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Elm Street meets Bigfoot War and The Sasquatch Murders, which
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is kind of a throwback to my book Manhunt. It's
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got the very serial killer versus sasquatch vibe going on,
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with a little bit of I hate the set jk.
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Rowlings Gilbriith books with the cuckoos calling. But I was
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going for that kind of vibe with one of the
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detectives because Cormeran strikes a great character. Yeah. But the
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book does focus primarily on the serial killer and the sasquatch,
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just like Manhunt.
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Dude, awesome.
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Now, before we begin, we go into the animal tack
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thing here, I get, well, we already announced it on Facebook.
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I thought we'd announced it here as well. But you
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and I are currently writing a book together. I think
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we're at the halfway mark right now.
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We are at the halfway point. Yeah, hopefully virtual high five. Yes, indeed,
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and hopefully we will fly through the rest of that
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book and it will be uh hopefully this summer. Who
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knows this the summer this fall from Evil Cookie.
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Pan Well, I wanted to thank you too for willing
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to bring me a board or on board.
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It's been a lot of so far my pleasure. I
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mean years ago, when I edited an anthology based on
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the Chud movie, you had one of the best stories
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in the book, I mean so and we became kind
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of Internet friends. So it was just a logical stept
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to say, hey, Jason, would you like to do this
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since we both like that genre.
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So thank thank you. It's it's been an awesome ride
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so far.
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Uh so animal attacks now, I have to admit I
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have read my fair share of animal attacks, but nowhere
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near where you have. I love creature features too, But
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you know, if you look at my because later on
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we're going to be talking about our honorable mentions in
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our top threes, you're going to notice that a lot
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of mine are like the mythological, mythological type creatures, not
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necessarily dogs or cats Dutch. But uh, but you know, uh,
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I admire your knowledge of animal attack books and uh
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and and I know that you've been wanting to do this,
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so so let's let's get into it.
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So what what the fine? What the fine? An animal
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attack noble? For you?
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Is it just limited to animals? Or can we add
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as I said just now, mythological creatures, creatures that are
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possibly real maybe not, you know what I mean.
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To me, I would go with just animals, plants, and insects.
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Those would be the three that constitute an animal attack.
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There can be a supernatural element in the book, but
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most of the time it's ecohara. It's some kind of
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mutation or toxic waste kind of thing, or some kind
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of disease or virus that's turned the animals against humanity,
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or just nature taking vengeance on us from destroying the planet.
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That that's the core of an animal attack book. However,
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there are very realistic ones that don't fall into that,
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like Jaws. Jaws is just a big, great white being
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itself and killing.
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Here's like I remember, I don't know if it's true
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or not. It might be it's the same with bears,
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they say once. I don't know if it's the same
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with sharks though, because sharks can't actually eat us. They
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can kill us, of course, and they can try to
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eat us, but they end up not eating us. But bears,
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they say, you know, once they get like the taste
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for human flesh, they crave it. Like do you believe
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in that? Like is that true or is it? Do
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you think maybe a myth myth on it?
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Well, you know, I can't, I would say with some animals, certainly.
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I just finished reading Killer by Peter Tonkin and Kill.
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The main character in it is a military trained killer well,
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and it definitely acquires the taste for human flesh, because
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I mean, that's just the premise of the book. It's
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trained by humans and one day it accidentally kills an
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emerald who came to check out the proper by the place,
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and it gets the taste of human flesh from him,
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and then they shoot it and face it runs all
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so it's got like this mixed mingling of oh gosh,
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humans hurt me with oh gosh, humans taste good, and
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it just it's a wild ride. I mean, Peter talking
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is probably famous for saying. Yeah. At the time Joles
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came out, he was he was already a writer and
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one of his friends said, hey, can you do better
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than Jiles? And he said, no, but I can do bigger.
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I can totally relate to that in my career. You know,
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I'm not always the better, but I strive for the bigger. Yeah.
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The Killer is one heck for read, and it's one
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of only two killer whale books that have ever been
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done in the genre to my knowledge. There's killer repeater
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talking in Orca, which there's a movie, and those are
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not the only killer whale books.
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And my wife's mom gave went into labor while watching
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the movie version of Orca.
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Oh wow, that that must have been an experience.
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Yeah, and she says that's probably why she's afraid of
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horror movies.
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Have you seen that movie?
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Or I have seen Orca, but it's been a very
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long time.
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Yeah. Yeah. So animals, why why do they attack? Is
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it just the excuse me here, is it just the
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instinctual fear of being eaten alive? Or is there something
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else to the effectiveness of animal attack horror? Why is
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it so scary?
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I think because realistically, it could happen. I mean, we
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could screw up the planet enough to the point where
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Mother Nature turns on us and just unleashes some horrible
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virus or you know, some kind of attack, and then
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you've got all the bioengineering going on today and the
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chemicals and the pollutants. I mean, it's a very realistic
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trope in that sense. So I think it's scary because
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it could be real. And especially in the case of
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animals like dogs and housecats. You know, there's this whole
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companionship friendship thing that gets turned completely on its head.
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Kujo is a great example of that. I know you're
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a fan of Kujo because Youkujo is this lovable big
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dog who would never hurt anyone, and through no fault
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of his own, he gets rabies and then he becomes
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like this vicious kill and it turns everything on its head. Yeah.
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Yeah, it's funny you bring that up because one of
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my questions here is about Disney and how Disney has
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made animals, including the ones that will kill us with
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no question ask, they've made them.
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Into these furry, companionable creatures. Do you think do you think?
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And you know you watch TikTok.
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Videos and whatnot, and maybe Facebook videos and whatnot, people
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befriending bears. Do you think this has desensitized us to
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the real threat of animals?
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Oh? Absolutely. I think in our modern culture we have,
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we're so comfortable, especially in America, you know, and probably
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Canada too. I'm assuming, yeah, that we're just cell phones
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and laptops and comfort and grocery stores, and we forget
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all about why it's like to be out there in
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the wild. So when we see a wild animal, our
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first instinct, MA, that'd be oh, that's cute, and then
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we go up and it rips its face, It rips
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our face off, you. I mean, because no matter how
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much we humanize them in our own brains, animals are
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still animals, and they're going to be driven by their
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own based instincts. And sometimes they instincts is hey I'm
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bigger than you and I'm going to eat you, or hey,
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you've intruded up on my territory and you're not supposed
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to be here, and they're not very kind about it.
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Yeah, that's absolutely true.
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I mean, you see people you see the dark side
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of that too. You see videos where people like they
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see a moose which you don't want to approach, or
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a bear and they're like, oh, I want to get
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a selfie with this animal, and they approach it and
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then the animal attacks and they're.
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Like, why did it attack mes?
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Oh? Yeah, for sure. I have a book here that
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I had not planned on showing that I'm actually opening
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right now because it's wrapped up in bubble wrap, which
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is a perfect example of what we're talking about, because
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it can get very crazy in the animal attack on it.
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But this book right here, I think it's pronounced Malsam,
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is about a killer deer. Of all things. There's actually