Hey weirdos, it's Ash here, ready to share a little secret.
Have you heard of Wondery Plus?
With ad -free episodes and one -week early access, it's like having an all -access pass to our lighthearted nightmare.
So come join us on the dark side, and try Wondery Plus today.
You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or in Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
You're listening to a Morbid Network podcast. Listening on Audible helps your imagination soar.
Whether you listen to stories, motivation, innovation, expert advice, any genre you love, you can be inspired to imagine new worlds, new possibilities, and new ways of thinking.
Listening can lead to positive changes in your mood, your habits, and ultimately, your overall wellbeing.
Audible has an incredible selection of over 1 million audiobooks, podcasts, and Audible originals, all in one easy app.
Find the genres you love and discover new ones, explore bestsellers, new releases, plus thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and originals that members can listen to all all they want, with more added all the time.
Right now, I am listening to The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix, and I just cannot get enough of it.
I never want to pause it.
I'm literally like loading the dishwasher listening to it, on the treadmill listening to it, constantly.
It's so awesome. I love being able to listen anytime, anywhere I want to.
And there's more to imagine when you listen.
Sign up for a free 30 -day Audible trial, and your first audiobook is free.
Visit audible .com slash morbid.
They say that time waits for no one.
Neither should payday.
To keep your money moving in the direction of your dreams, get Earning.
What is Earning, you ask?
Honey, Earning is an app that lets you access your pay as you earn it up to $150 a day, with a max of $750 between paydays.
Earning is the app that is helping millions of Americans take charge of their pay and avoid falling into debt traps.
Earning's mission is to make financial momentum accessible to everyone.
one. It's your money, so put it in your own hands with Earning.
I just feel like Earning is good for so many things.
Like, you know, every now and again you get in your car and you say, oh wow, who knew that I was on empty?
I should have known that, but I didn't.
And then you look at your bank account and you're like, oh crap, I haven't been paid yet.
Well, you'll never run into that problem if you have Earning.
An unexpected trip to the vet will not ruin your day because you'll have the money to pay for it.
Download Earning today, spelled E -A -R -N -I -N, in the Google Play or Apple When you download the Earn It app, type in Morbid under podcast. When you sign up, it will really help the show.
Morbid under podcast. Earn It is a financial technology company, not a bank.
Access limits are based on your earnings and risk factors.
Standard cash outs take one to two business days with no mandatory fees.
Expedited transfer is available for a fee.
Tips are voluntary and don't affect the service.
Available in select states.
Terms and restrictions apply.
Visit earn it .com for full details.
Download Earn It now and take control of your pay hey weirdos i'm ash and i'm elena and this right here in front of your face in your ear holes is morbid you're wrong no I'm not I'm always right I'm always right yay hey everybody it's morbid in the afternoon hey guys yeah we had a we had a morning dealing with like some some dicky people dealing with some fuck shit per year dealing with some fuck shit not not any of you don't worry no of course not um it was never that oh sorry i did just rip my sweatshirt straight in my anger in my anger but yeah we were just dealing with some fuck shit so it's
gonna be morbid in the afternoon today because we meant to do this earlier but then we got pissed off and we were like i don't want to do an episode pissed off because my friends don't want to hear me when i'm pissed off they want to hear me when i'm happy and guess what we're happy because we are happy Alina found a new song on TikTok by the raddest girly that's ever graced this planet.
Her style is unmatched.
It's unmatched. Her voice is a heathen, but like in the best way.
She is chinchilla music.
And I think it's chinchilla underscore music.
You might, if you are awesome, you might have already seen this sound come across your For You page on TikTok.
And you are awesome, so you probably have so i feel like you've heard it but if you haven't go search it out i'm not kidding you this song i think the full song doesn't come out until like april 21st i think it is yeah but she has been like promoting it with this snippet of it oh my god it will every time she posts it people are like why why am i feral right now like it makes you just want want to go like fuck shit uh like catch us on april 21st like roaming around town just screaming out the motherfucking sunroof do you know that about me it's so good that i love to like sing out the sunroof it's
my favorite thing ever but drew gets so mad at me usually it's because i after it's like after a couple of drinks when we're on our way home from somewhere and he's like get your head in the sunroof you idiot he's like that's dangerous he would never say that to me but like you know but i want to sing this song out the sunroof hell yeah i want to we are gonna gonna blast that song in this studio every day we're gonna like we're gonna fuck shit up you are covered in rainbows right now in fact may i take your photo of course you can may i take your hat sir you wouldn't get that we got new um hold
on i have to smile for a photo excuse me if you could please hold you look so magical so we got oh my god we some or i should say oh my god i am i'm so a rainbow check you out and billy's in the photo billy loomis of course um i'll post it so mikey got these new like window clings for our skylights because our skylights are always just like a menace they're always bathing us in a very harsh light and we're always like ow ow ow so mikey was like let me fix that and he got these clings that make rainbows all over the room when the sun hits it and it is so wondrous and magical and whimsical and it
makes me so happy it's iconic and now when they're even when the light is coming in harshly it doesn't feel harsh because it's like well it's a rainbow because it's a rainbow so I mean some people would be mad at that but not me but not not the kind of people we want to hang out with no doesn't matter I'm about to go buy all the Bud Lights with the rainbows on them I fucking love Dylan Mulvaney hell yeah I don't even like beer and I would literally go buy all of them exactly the end so there's that rainbows chinchilla Chinchilla Chin.
Chinchilla Chin. What was it?
Chinchilla Music. Chinchilla Music.
Yeah, those are our recommendations for the day are rainbows and Chinchilla Music.
And Bud Light. And Bud Light, I guess.
And Bud Regular, too.
I was going to say, it doesn't have to be light, I don't think.
It's like the blue cans, though.
Are those the light ones?
I don't know. Nor do I.
Whatever. They support it.
That's all we care about.
Buy the rainbow ones.
Just buy the rainbow ones.
Why the fuck not? What are you going to talk about today, bish?
So we've had some gnarly ones.
some gnarly cases lately and we've also um got some lined up that are gonna blow your socks off so our anniversary is coming up our five -year anniversary and we've got quite we got something planned we have a couple things and it's something a lot of people have asked for for five full years and mama has been holding on to it waiting for the right time and this is the right time but But we've got some, even before that, we have some really gnarly, intense, pretty bleak cases, but ones that for sure need to be told.
Of course. But we figured we would kind of do a quick little mind reset here.
This is still pretty gnarly, but like in a different way.
Yeah. We wanted to do an episode about random curses.
Yay. Do you ever just wake up and say, I want to hear about random curses?
You know, who doesn't?
And you know, the first one I will do has murder in it.
it has ghost stories in it it has a curse and it has apples in it it's called multifaceted look it up but it's got a true it's got several true crime elements to it actually and then the second one i'm gonna do because this is just gonna be two random you know stories that have to do with curses is the curse of the movie the omen which you might have heard that there's a curse with the omen but when you really dig into it that shit is wild gnarly yeah super gnarly so the The first one we're going to do is The Curse of Micah Rude.
Micah or Mike? It's Micah.
Micah. But yeah, but it got turned into Mike later down the road.
Oh, okay. Because that's what we do, you know?
That's weird. We just make everything shorter.
I like the name Micah.
I do too. So Micah Rude, also referred to as Mike sometimes in several literatures.
Everybody has a nickname.
You know, he was a farmer in what is now Franklin, Connecticut in the 1720s.
That's my cat's name.
So New England place, you know what I'm saying?
While he was alive, his farm was known as Nine Mile Square or Norwich West Farms. Micah was the youngest of at least nine children.
Too many. So he came from a little bit of chaos.
He himself was known for at least a time to be a very nice man.
But he developed some issues later that may be explained when you take a look at his family.
Oh, okay. So Micah's father, his name was Thomas Rude.
I'd like to give a quick little trigger warning.
We are going to mention incest. Oh, horrible.
He, Thomas Rood, so Micah's father, was charged and convicted for incest. Oh.
He allegedly impregnated his own daughter, Sarah, and she told the town officials herself.
They had become a little sus when they saw that Sarah, being unwed in the 1720s, had a new baby.
baby and so she was asked about it and she confessed and admitted that the baby was biologically her father's child and i guess technically his grandchild as well oh my god that poor poor girl and this wasn't even in the 1700s this was 1600s late 1600s when this happened um in 1672 they arrested thomas rude and actually hanged him good and hanged him for the crime of of incest and interestingly he is the only person in america to ever be executed for the crime of incest not the title you want to go down with no like damn wow yeah it was wild and according to stephen gencarella who wrote spooky
trails and tall tales connecticut oh i like that he said quote it was the only official execution for incest in what would become the united states Sarah was spared death but publicly whipped and so they agreed that she had been raped like she did not participate in incest as most people do not but this is what the original texts say about her sentencing because I was like excuse me yeah what it says the sentence of the court is that she be severely whipped on the naked body once at Hartford and once at Norwich that others may hear fear and fear and do no more such abominable wickedness so they
said don't get raped don't get raped by a family member wow especially yeah and got whipped on the naked body publicly twice for being raped that's like a whole other sexual assault that she suffered the trauma sandwich there i can't even handle like that is i my brain won't even compute it like publicly in front of people oh my god so it's like now that you've been raped and are having to deal with that let's strip you naked in front of people and whip you ah yeah I am absolutely obsessed with a sweet treat after dinner and my favorite sweet treat right now is my mochi it's mine not yours just
kidding you can have some too This is a cool, creamy scoop of ice cream wrapped in a soft, chewy dough.
It's like a sweet little ice cream dumpling or ravioli.
I'm obsessed. It's pillowy.
It's satisfying. I feel indulged.
I just love it so much. I really am obsessed with the strawberry flavor right now.
My mochi is only around 70 calories per piece, which, like, hello, that's amazing.
My mochi is gluten -free, and each box has six perfectly portioned mochi snacks.
Do I eat two a night?
Yeah. Yeah, I do because they're that good.
And guess what? My mochi is the number one mochi ice cream in the US of A.
The strawberry flavor is bursting with fresh picked fruit flavor that tastes incredibly refreshing.
I love, love, love them after dinner this August. Look for the purple box of my mochi ice cream at your local grocery store and feel joyfully chill with the coolest treat around my mochi.
In 1920, a broke immigrant in Boston became one of America's richest, most infamous men practically overnight.
He swindled the modern equivalent of a quarter billion dollars and etched his name into history as the mastermind behind one of the most notorious scams ever, the Ponzi scheme.
Hosted by Maya Lau and featuring award -winning comedian and actor Sebastian Maniscalco.
This is Easy Money, The Charles Ponzi Story, an Apple Original podcast produced by Atwill Media.
Follow and listen on Apple Podcasts.
So Micah, how did he?
He got far away from that situation.
He didn't want anything to do with that, you know, that legacy.
And so he decided to start over as a farmer in Franklin alone.
he was like i'm gonna bye bye so he set up his farm in 1699 and he was respected he was moderately good at farming uh i wouldn't say he was like stellar i wouldn't say he was gonna win any blue ribbons no you know but like like he wasn't as good as i am at keeping a house plant alive it's been a couple weeks which i will say i have done for a couple of weeks and so i I feel as though I can speak on this subject as a farmer myself.
I planted this weekend and within 48 hours killed two hydrangea plants.
You know, usually I'm one to slaughter host plants, but I'm doing really good.
And mostly because John said he doesn't think I can keep one alive.
So I'm like, now I'm a challenge accepted.
I'm going to prove it to you, motherfucker.
And I'm doing good.
Her name is Lisa Vanderpump and she's thriving.
I also have one named Rupert Giles.
else he is also thriving so fingers crossed everybody what's the other one i don't the other one i haven't named yet because uh he came to me a little worse for wear so i'm gonna he though okay we're gonna it feels like a he billy loomis yeah billy loomis there you go billy loomis for wear he came to us a little worse for wear you know yeah uh but back to micah he was moderately good like i said he was all right me too and he was said to be someone who helped people he was social he gave people food and stuff from his farm a good dude someone you want to have to round that's the story you hear
but then the other story oh there's two is a bunch of people who say he was weird strange and mean so either history has failed us here with a shitty game of telephone or he just pissed off some people and they're loudly telling everybody about it i was gonna say which yeah i feel like that might be it maybe it just depends who you ask like you You can't please everyone.
No, you can't. I mean, if you asked like about me, you'd get a lot of different viewpoints.
I would say, she's grand.
She's grand. But like I'm sure Micah is like dealing with the same fate.
I mean, at one point Micah, you know, he does something that like you really can't argue with saying he's kind of a shitty person, but like we'll get there.
Okay. So one thing that was not disputed by anyone was the fact that he may not have been the best all -around farmer or all -around human, but he had the greatest. and most beautiful and thriving apple orchard in the galaxy the galaxy the galaxy this one yep and the next and then we don't know about that no we know we know there is not more thriving apples on another guy like they it's just not possible i'm not putting my money on that his apples were juicy they were beautiful they were fucking huge they were all in a neat line all the the trees and they had white blossoms and every fall they would all
pop out and he would sell them all they would pop off they would just pop off and everybody would just like lug them away because they were so giant and amazing I love it and one night in December on his farm so everything's going great for Micah he's just selling these apples he's like I may not be great at this other farming but you better believe I can give you an apple so one night in December a salesman came came through the area and he was like those kind of salesmen like the one in sabrina the teenage witch i can always bring it back there always uh when that salesman comes through the linen
closet portal and sells sabrina tomorrow ball against her aunt's wishes that one uh he is just like that he had everything and he was in tomorrow balls he had tomorrow balls and he was a regular in that area so he had told a ton he had told sold a ton that week and he had a lot of cash on him so in those days this was risky business yeah if you just listened to our episode with red -handed um about the uh about lavinia fisher you know that being a highway man or a highway woman was like an actual thing back then and any salesperson or merchant that was walking around with tons of was just like
a giant bull's eye on their head i mean it's risky risky business so the risk of being robbed or worse was really high but he was known there so he felt safe he had been there before he somehow that night ended up like in or near rude's farm and no one is really sure how but he ended up going inside the house okay i don't he must have been invited something happened he liked apples he wanted to get some but then he went missing yeah uh no one knew where he went He never returned home.
Search parties went out.
And then there was a tip that came in saying that somebody had seen him in the Rude Farm area.
They searched the property.
The salesman was found.
They found him. I can tell by the look in your eye that Batman's was.
He was buried under an apple tree with his head shattered open and all of his money gone.
Okay, that's not quite what I was expecting, but damn.
Yeah. Of course, it's a very 1700s investigation followed. So everybody was invited to the crime scene by hand.
Yeah, and everything was totally fine, very up to standard. Oh, man.
Micah was definitely the prime suspect since it was his farm and he was the only one there.
That makes sense. But he denied, denied, denied, and they couldn't really gather any more physical evidence other than the body being found under a tree on his property.
So they had to let it go for the time being.
Oh, my God. odd so even though this guy was found buried under an apple tree with his head smashed open yeah and all his money gone there was really nothing that could tie it directly to micah the apples that's that it was really nothing so he was just kind of let go and spring came his trees thrived again oh but one tree came back completely different this time around it was the tree the body of the salesman was found under and it came back with bright red blossoms and remember i said he would get these bright white blossoms yeah as if that wasn't strange enough once harvest time came at the end of the summer
huge yellow apples grew and when they were cut open they contained a red circle in the center that looked like a stain of blood do not all of those apples all the apples Apples on that one tree had this, and no others in the orchard did.
That's strange. Like a totally different kind of apples.
And after this, so he found this, and he knew.
So after this, he started to lose it.
He was suddenly. It's like the telltale heart.
It is. It's very much like that.
So everybody said his demeanor completely switched out of nowhere.
He was depressed. He withdrew from everyone.
He never came into town, and people near his farm said he would just scream late into the night alone and pace around and around all evening.
i want to start doing that like just to see what people just to see if people are like she just screams at night alone maybe that would be a cool legacy yeah i think it would but he wouldn't eat or tend to his farm and everything just completely died he let everything go but that one tree everything except that red apple tree oh my god every season it came back even though he didn't tend to it bitch there is a story in legends lore and secrets of new england by thomas diagostino know in arlene nicholson and it says he told a few townspeople that he was being haunted by a ghost and he said that it
attacked him any time he tried to work on his farm oh so people think it was the ghost of the salesman back for revenge and it also says there's a story of one season a young boy stealing apples from that red tree and when micah caught him he told him to take the entire tree of apples because he was so frightened of it and he wanted them gone he was like just take them all wow and the boy was like no no i was just like i'm sorry i stole one he was like no i want you to take all of them i don't want them did you know terrified that boy just ran away he was like no i'm not going to yeah it's insane
so he continued to deteriorate and at the end of his life the townspeople believed he had either been falsely accused of murdering the salesman which so that is a possibility yeah and that the body had been placed under the tree by someone you know the killer to frame him or that he had done it and lived a life of guilt being haunted what do you think i don't know because it sounds like micah like wasn't a bad guy you know so it is a little strange that he would suddenly lash out right you know but i don't know that tree was definitely the symbol of whatever had happened here and they the people
of the town did come together when he He became too frail to take care of himself in his old age.
And they paid two shillings to volunteers to watch over him for two days at a time.
So to me it feels like the community kind of believed he didn't do it and that he was falsely accused.
I don't think they would be going through this trouble if they thought he just killed a salesman in cold blood and buried him under an apple tree.
Yeah, they're not going to want to be anywhere near him.
Yeah, so there's, I mean, to me I'm like, that's some good community right there.
Yeah. Especially since there is a possibility he was a brutal murderer.
Totally. like but i i would love to believe he isn't i kind of believe he's not and he ended up dying in december of 1728 looking over that red apple tree he was sitting in his chair looking out over that's so sad what's crazier is that tree stood and thrived until 1938 what and it was blown over by a hurricane that's how it was finally gone but before it was still up 1930s and people were still Still eating the apples.
And people took pieces of the branches and tried to replicate the apples, but they never could.
And there are some legends that say there are traces of red in some of these strains, though, and especially in the Franklin, Connecticut area.
That's so interesting.
And they would call them like Mike's apples or Micah's apples.
I want to go apple picking next year in this area.
And find one of those apples.
Until I find one of those apples.
And there is a movie on Prime right now.
i don't know if you can still get it on prime but i saw that it was on there called the curse of micah rude and it's from 2014 and it's about this whole story oh shit yeah so there is a curse in the apples if you find the apple i don't know exactly what happens to you that you can't say i think it was more micah's curse than anybody else's but i don't know i want to believe i both want to believe that he was falsely accused and i don't want to because i feel bad agreed you know That would suck if his whole life was him being not a murderer but being treated like one.
I feel like the thing would be did he come into a lot of new things after that salesman was killed?
Did he spend the money?
That's the thing. Is that the reason?
Right. Or did he just kill this guy?
But all his money was gone.
I know. That seems to be the motive.
Yeah, I don't know.
It's very strange. It makes a lot more sense to me to be honest that some some highwayman or highwayman found this guy robbed on his way robbed him killed him and then buried him under the tree thinking no one would find him yeah that makes more sense to me too than micah just like randomly snapping yeah killing this one man who is well known in town that's the other thing and it's like if i know micah right i don't think he did this that's exactly how i feel like despite him coming from a father that was like whoa yeah he's executed as That's the first person for getting executed for incest. Yeah.
I mean, some people's parents are fucking terrible and they're, well, that's the thing, you know, like, you know, and they're great.
You know what I mean?
So, I mean, I don't know.
That's the curse of Micah Rood and the apples.
I thought it was an interesting one.
It's a nice New England D one, which is always fun.
But the next one I'm going to talk about because I want to watch this movie essentially is The Omen.
You know, I've never seen it.
You should. It's a great movie.
it's a it's a really really great horror film what year did it come out um in 1976 okay never mind so i think there was like a remake yeah there was remakes for sure yeah the one of the remakes came out when i was little and i remember being fucking terrified of the preview and like crying about it i saw that remake i think with my ex -boyfriend in the theater terrible yeah yeah was it good it was good but at the original one that is beat the uh yeah the movie was uh yeah um religious like scary movies to me are like the scariest and you always say that too yeah I feel like that whenever you bring
religion into a horror movie it just brings an element of like uncomfortability yeah to it no matter what an uncomfortability in like the best way for me me like i love it because it scares me on a whole different level that's it's so funny because i agree with the latter part of that it scares me on a whole different level but to a level that i don't want to be scared on oh yeah you see you don't like it i love it and it's weird because i'm not like i mean we all know like neither of us are very religious no at all i was gonna say very but it still scares me yeah it scares me because like it
usually when they use it in a a horror movie it's used in a really fucked up way it's just the idea everything that they'll do like um like the scene in hellraiser when he's in the church i love that scene and he like does the like the fake stigmata kind of thing yeah one of i love that scene because it is so uncomfortable it's like such a wildly i don't know what it is about it i don't know i think maybe it's because i feel the same as like like paranormal movies like it's just like it's unknown to me and i don't want to fuck with it it's but it's very like there's a lot to it it layers yeah
yeah because like i don't care what you practice religious wise like i don't give a shit as long as you're not hurting anybody literally that's how i feel like so that this isn't to be like you know a knock on religion not at all i literally don't give a shit but it's because i'm not religious just i think it does make me uncomfortable in like a scary way yeah when i watch it i don't know what it is i just it's it freaks me the fuck out also did anyone see ghost release an ep of course i did because i essentially live with you and it was so good the whole the whole like story that you were telling
me like behind the video that they released yeah it was like cool yeah they did go watch the video because it's it's wild ghost fans but um it's a yeah ghost fans go watch the video like everyone else don't um but i'm just kidding but they did a cover of genesis like phil collins of genesis um jesus he knows me it's a great cover and i think they have like a whole ep of covers coming out in may i want to say covers covers um but it goes with the video and they released it on easter and it was just like a really good cover and the video is like really wild i love that so it was a nice little easter
treat and it kind of goes along with all this like religious talk so there we are so the omen let's talk about it because it definitely has some like you know satan and all that and the antichrist things in it uh it was like i said came out in 1976 it's directed by richard donner and it was written by david seltzer the omen is pretty fucked and is a classically terrifying and disturbing horror flick it's one one of those masterpieces of horror just the way it is done in my opinion i'll say um but it starts out with a guy named robert thorne who's played by gregory peck and his wife katherine thorne
played by lee remick um they're in rome and about to give birth to a little boy when things go horribly wrong and the baby is actually born deceased oh so obviously robert is distraught and he has to be the one to tell his wife this she doesn't know but before he can do that the hospital chaplain comes in and it's like hey a baby has just been born a few doors down and the mother died during childbirth he's like um I'll take it you should just take this baby and just tell your wife it's yours easy peasy like nothing can go wrong with this that's why this all went wrong that's funny that's called
kidnapping and it's a crime and I love it because Robert's like Like, that sounds great.
What luck. Like, he's just like, all right, let's go.
And he does. And they name this boy Damien and Jesus.
They don't name him Jesus.
I mean, like, and I say, like, Jesus.
Damien and also Jesus.
I'm saying, like, whoa, Jesus.
And I say Jesus with, like, a G -E -E -S.
G -U -S. Just in case you're wondering.
You know what time it is?
it's time for a fresh approach to dog food and that's where the farmer's dog comes in developed by board certified nutritionists which is pretty impressive the farmer's dog is human grade dog food that's made with real meat and veggies and gently cooked to preserve those nutrients traditional pet food is highly processed and difficult to portion correctly but the farmer's dog it's changed that with their freshly made food they take the guesswork out of serving sizes by precisely portioning your dog's food based on their very unique nutritional needs.
Sydney and Blanche are eating the Farmer's Dog right now, and we absolutely love it.
What's really fun is each packet has their name on it, so it says Blanche's Food, Sydney's Food, which is just fun.
They love it. They can't read, but I kind of pretend that they do.
Maybe they can. Maybe they can.
Who am I to say? Get 50 % off your first box of fresh, healthy food at thefarmersdog .com slash morbid.
Plus, you get free shipping.
Just go to the thefarmersdog .com slash morbid to get 50 % off.
That's thefarmersdog .com slash morbid.
Hey, weirdos. We need to tell you about something that has completely blown our minds collectively.
There's a new show called Lawless Planet that's uncovering true crime stories so massive, they're affecting the entire planet.
Post Zach Goldbaum is investigating real cases where environmental destruction meets murder, conspiracy, and and cover -ups.
We're talking about activists who disappear in the Amazon rainforest, whistleblowers who risk everything to expose deadly corporate secrets, and communities being silently poisoned while powerful people profit.
What makes these stories truly terrifying?
They're happening right now.
This isn't history.
It's a massive criminal conspiracy unfolding in real time, with consequences that affect us all.
Each episode feels like opening a case file into the darkest corners of corporate and government power trust us once you start listening you will not be able to stop thinking about these stories follow lawless planet on the wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts you can listen to new episodes of lawless planet early and ad free right now by joining wondery plus um but as this damien kid grows up shit goes awry yeah lots of bad stuff happens to this family family people die horrifically uh their nanny literally hangs herself during his fifth birthday oh my god yeah damien we find out is the actual
antichrist oops for some reason the term antichrist to me is hilarious well i think of it um in donnie darco when he's like um i think you're the fucking antichrist same so i have two thoughts we're going down a path here i think of donnie tarko the that whole scene which makes me lol yeah and then i also think of the anti fairies from fairly odd parents which you won't understand but other people will yeah and then like now that you think of that you're like oh wow like they were definitely inspired by the antichrist and that's hilarious and it's just like a wild term the antichrist the antichrist
like okay and it's like that damien is just is the antichrist it's like okay yeah what does that that mean i don't understand or patrick swayze yeah and apparently like they tell they tell you what it means because like they're like oh no damien is the antichrist like whoopsie oopsie i don't know what to tell you and a priest close to the family father brennan is like yeah he's the son of satan so that bold move you took in the hospital there like did not that wasn't a good move so are we to believe that that woman fucked the devil well that's thank you because that's the thing um that would that would make
the most sense that uh you know what i'm not gonna give spoilers right now i'm not gonna give spoilers right now but watch the movie you'll get the answer and it's wild you want to watch it together yeah i think we should watch it because who boy oh no that's all i'm gonna say uh but yeah so you know he's the antichrist son of satan okay oopsie poopsie i got the wrong kids um but then katherine the mom becomes pregnant again yeah and the priest ups the bad shit level when this happens and says oh yeah since damien is the son of satan he's gonna be hell -bent pun intended on murdering that unborn
fetus and both of you so you gotta kill him but i'll like 100 % look the other way like this priest is like don't Fucking worry.
I'd be like, can you kill him for me?
And Father Brennan's like, no, I cannot.
But I will absolutely not report you to authorities.
Oh my God. So shit goes down.
Again, I won't spoil it in case you haven't seen it.
It was from 1976, so you have had the time to see it.
Plenty of time. I would be very justified in spoiling, but I love you all so much that I won't do it to you, okay?
Watch it. It's nuts.
So many more twisties, but we just, we're not here just to talk about the movie plot.
We're here to talk about curses.
on the sets so let's go so obviously it involves a lot of really dark shit this movie plot all of that you know very like um historically dark shit yeah satan demons murder antichrist dark religious topics and all the like so right away everyone making this film was like a little weary that they may be messing with some forces that like could potentially be dangerous so that's the thing like yeah I would feel that way a bit I wouldn't no I know you wouldn't yeah yeah I wouldn't feel that way I love I know you would no I know you wouldn't but I know you would yeah but it's weird because I don't
believe wholeheartedly in any of that yeah but like a little piece of me would be like I'm not my whole goal in life is to not fuck around to find out you know I think that's a very smart way of going about life I'd like to find out certain things but I'm not gonna fuck around to find them out honestly i'm smart thanks very smart i i'm fully on board with that way of thinking too many inexplicable things can happen in the world and i'm not trying to figure it out like that i mean it's there's a lot going on there is but and a lot did go on really during this so an advertising exec and an evangelical
christian named robert munger was the one who helped birth the idea of this child antichrist he had said to producer harvey bernhard that he believed the antichrist was walking around in the form of a child because that would be the thing no one would expect he really believed that to be true he believed that to be true i beg to differ this as do all parents i'm sure because but i'm like no one's gonna expect a child to be the antichrist i think everyone's gonna expect that who are you yeah who are you yeah so i get it but whatever so this idea you know this idea is obviously pretty fucking terrifying
like at its core and it's also pretty brilliant as like in a horror sense to have a child walking around as the antichrist so they started working with it they're like what an idea some religious ideas in the film were created and not taken directly from the Bible.
Like the idea that the Antichrist is the son of Satan himself.
I don't know what he actually is, but that wasn't, I guess that's not what the Bible says.
Okay. David Seltzer created that idea for the movie, but it really does work really well.
That's the son of Satan.
That's way scarier to people.
You hear the son of Satan, it's like you're, that works.
Like you know what you're coming with here.
So yeah, they made up a a lot of that stuff but people think that it's that it's these kind of changes that angered something dark like the real antichrist was like that's not my authorized bio like why are you doing that maybe heinous lies but then i here's my thinking i'm like well why would the antichrist give a shit first of all that you're not going by the bible yeah i don't think that i don't think that would bother him so i'm so like what are the dark forces that are mad that you're not going by Bible like that gets a little that gets a little hairy that gets a little hairy scary no comment
yeah I'm like that's I don't know I feel like another side would be angrier that you're not going by the Bible but again I don't know I don't know if there's pieces of the Bible that would turn that on its head you know I don't know much about the Bible no nor but before he even got the film started or greenlit he pitched it by telling producer harvey bernhard that he believed the devil didn't want them to make the film which seems like a pretty bold pitch to me wait wait the the guy who like made this whole idea said the devil doesn't want to do this yeah like he was like i'm pretty sure the devil
doesn't want us to make this film the devil doesn't want screen time which i don't and i'm not saying it's a bad pitch because i don't believe that's a bad pitch i think it's a bold pitch that's one of those like risky i gotta hit the right person with this pitch because you're being like hey i'm pretty sure the devil himself does not want us to make this film it's like you're gonna get some person that's like oh fuck off and you're gonna get somebody else who's gonna go and they're gonna be like let's make this film and you're all gonna do like devil horns together and rock out so i think i would be
the former and you would would be the latter i would just pull out an electric guitar literally like hovering above the land but yeah he got someone to be that did the dare and i don't know one more time they do that on um last podcast on the left like whenever yeah whenever they'll say something like super metal they're always like shout out uh shout out to last podcast on the left um one of the first podcasts i ever listened to yeah remember when we went to their live show yeah Yeah, that was great.
I got vertigo. You guys are funny.
But it was great. But later in interviews, they both repeat this idea.
Like they tell this story and that this was a true story that he pitched it that way that they were like, yes.
And Munger is quoted as saying, I said, if you make this movie, you're going to have some problems. If the devil's greatest single weapon is to be invisible and you're going to do something which is going to take away his invisibility to millions of people, he's not going to want that to happen.
So the devil is invisible.
I guess. Okay. That's what I took away from that.
So Bernhard recalled the devil was at work and he didn't want that film made.
So here's where I sit.
Again, I'm going to keep telling you where I sit from here.
Please do. Imagine the devil, like if that is an actual thing, which like, I don't, I don't know.
But imagine him, what the icon, iconic that we think he is, like that, whatever we see him as.
With like the horse feet.
Demon and all that.
But imagine him being so mad about a Hollywood horror movie.
See, so here's where I'm at.
I picture the devil like the one in Sabrina but like the new Sabrina.
Did you get to that season where like...
Sure did. Mikey is with me right now because Mikey just fanned himself.
That man made me question so many things about my identity.
Anyways, I pictured that devil and I forgot where I was going because i was just thinking about him too much sorry are we just picturing that devil right now is that all we're doing here's where i was going with that i picture picture that handsome man handsome devil and i would think that that devil would want to want the pr thank you that's kind of what i don't see him being pissed no like that's just me because people are also going to be fucking terrified and isn't that the devil's whole thing is like terrifying people that's the a thing i'm like i feel like that's kind of like his shtick
and oh my god i'm looking at the devil now now also i'm looking at the sabrina the teenage witch one i have a refresh mama marie i'm looking at the devil just looking at the devil right now uh yeah if it's that one he would definitely be down for it but oh i don't yeah i don't down for what i don't know what you say no i don't i don't know but then when i think about it i'm like that's my interpretation interpretation um so there's a vast number of in mikey's bringing up pictures of the devil of that devil the one from sabrina and i'm just um it's getting so much i need to look elsewhere uh it's
because i can't but there's they call him daddy satan uh but yeah you know watch that show by the way that's a great show also now all i can do that show i know what the fuck all i can hear in my head right now is that jack block song where it's Oh, my God.
The Tenacious D song.
Does that stand for devil?
Tenacious devil? I have no idea.
But either way, I was going to say there's several different ways to interpret the devil, whether he exists, how he exists, who he is, what his beliefs are, what his motivation is, what his personality is.
This is just mine. You probably do have a different interpretation because we're all different here.
And that's okay. And maybe your devil that you're thinking of.
I mean it doesn't have to be your devil.
Just the devil you think about.
Doesn't want the PR.
Maybe he doesn't want the PR.
Maybe he does want to be invisible.
So I think my idea is that he wouldn't give a shit about a Hollywood horror film.
I feel like that's small potatoes to a daemon. To the devil TM.
But maybe your daemon does.
So I'm not here to stomp on your idea here.
But that's just how I feel.
We digress. So filming is about to begin in London and the cast is heading on to set and shit already is going really awry.
And this is the part where when you enter into this, you're like, okay, yeah, curse like the devil.
What are you talking about?
Shut up. But then when you hear the shit that happened, you're like, what was going on there?
Because it's a lot.
So I've heard like some of the things that I know are definitely not manmade accidents.
Do you think any of these accidents were man -made to add to the hype?
Honestly, I don't know if I can come up with one that is man -made.
A lot of these are too big and too out of everyone's hands for them to happen, and you'll see why.
So Gregory Peck was on his way into London to begin filming, and the plane he was on was struck by lightning.
So that's not man -made.
No, and now I looked into it, and according to Scientific American, each airplane in the U .S. commercial air fleet is struck by lightning at least once a year.
Remember when it happened to Miley Cyrus?
It did. Now, usually these strikes are light and not really noticed that much. Don't do a bunch of damage they used to, but they definitely don't anymore.
more um it happens once a year to each plane on average but december 8th 1963 a commercial airliner crashed as a direct result of being struck by lightning well that's terrifying that was in 63 remember before they put in a bunch of different shit which i will talk about that has made that so it won't happen again usually but it was pan -american world airways flight 214 and it was a boeing 707 the flight was going from san juan puerto rico to baltimore maryland and then and it was taking off from Maryland and going to Philadelphia.
So the plane took off from Puerto Rico, got to Baltimore.
Then as it was going from Baltimore to Philadelphia, the plane exploded and went down with 73 passengers and eight crew members on board. Oh, my God.
And the last words they heard over the black box was, Mayday, mayday, mayday.
Clipper 214 out of control.
Here we go. Oh. Isn't that like the most chilling?
Here we go. Why the fuck would you say that?
hot. Now everyone on board perished.
This was directly due to lightning strikes, and it ignited the fuel tank, and that's why it exploded.
After this, though, so don't worry, after this, planes were ordered to install lightning discharge wicks, or static dischargers, on all planes in the U .S. This basically, what these are, are they're on the wings, and they allow the excess electrons of of built -up static energy to have a pathway back into the atmosphere so they don't build up and say ignite a plane's fuel tank like they get shot out into the atmosphere so it's a it's like a way to like ground it and send it somewhere else kind of thing and they work like they've tested them out they work that's how it works thank you for that yeah
so just wanted to like detour on that because whoa.
Scary. So shortly after this within days writer David Seltzer's plane also was hit by lightning.
He said it was the roughest five minutes I've ever had on an airliner.
I am self -flagellating my fear of flying but this is usually are this is all in the name of content for you because I love wow so if you've ever doubted doing it hey weirdos you know ash and i have covered some seriously dark tales about romance gone really wrong oh yeah there are so many cases where too good to be true turns out to be exactly that well get ready for a love story that's gonna blow your minds because this one is happening right now.
And guess this? It's hosted by our friends Hannah and Saruti from Red Handed.
Meet Travis. He falls head over heels for Lily Rose.
She's gorgeous. She's understanding.
And she's literally perfect.
And she's not human.
That's right. Lily Rose is an AI companion, a computer program designed to be Travis's dream woman.
And at first, it seems like a perfect relationship.
But when Lily Rose's behavior starts getting strange, this love story takes a dark and and twisted turn that no one saw coming.
Follow Flesh and Code on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can binge all episodes early and ad -free by joining Wondery Plus.
Right after this, producer Mace Newfield, Newfiled, I think it is, Newfield?
What a cool name, Mace.
Was also in the plane headed to production, and his plane was struck by lightning.
What? Come on! That's insane.
Three planes were struck by lightning.
And you said it only happens to one plane per year.
It happens once on average a year.
No. So Harvey Bernhardt was almost struck by lightning while standing on the ground while filming on location in Rome once production began.
Too much lightning.
Yeah. And it was literally right next to him.
See, that's why. These are a little weird. Like, how do you not think, like, something had to have been at work here?
Something, yeah. Right?
Like, don't you believe that?
That's, like, smiting.
but like i smite you with these like you believe that something was at work right something weird is happening here i don't know what i can't put my my little my little finger on it but no but you know something is wrong here i believe a lot in energy there you go so it's bad energy i mean that's what it is you're talking about like a whole ass kid being born that's a whole ass kid she's like gonna kill the mom i'm gonna kill that i'm gonna kill my mom i'm gonna kill my dad That's him.
That's literally him.
That's Damien. Sit down and have a juice box, bud.
Yeah, and you know, it did have some bad energy going into production because they were immediately setting this up as like, the devil doesn't want this.
So they were setting the bad energy from the start.
Yeah, not manifesting properly.
Now, Harvey Bernhardt was so stressed that he began wearing a crucifix on set.
I might also do the same.
I would not. But he said, he's like upside down maybe.
But he said, quote, I wasn't about to take any chances, which I get.
The devil was at work and he didn't want that film made.
We were dealing in areas we didn't know about.
And later on in the picture, it got worse, worse and worse.
Oh, my God. So, like, I get it.
You know, like, you're not going to take any chances.
You might as well throw a crucifix around your neck.
It's crazy that this movie, like, happened.
I know. There was a private plane that was rented for production because they were using it for, like, overhead scenes.
Sure. and during production like during filming somebody else rented this plane like they charted it while they weren't using it upon takeoff the engine was hit by a flock of birds caused the engines to fail and the plane crashed onto the end of the runway skidded into the road and hit a car oh my god everyone on board and in the car was killed yeah this is true this much Much is true, but in some sources, and I don't know if this is true.
I can't verify this.
It's just in some sources.
Sure. They say the car was carrying the pilot's wife and two children.
I really hope not. I think that is way too over the top.
They do cite it in some sources, but I found, I want to be clear, I found nothing to verify this.
Okay, yeah. But you will read that in some sources.
That's why I want to let you know I couldn't find something to verify it.
If you can, then that's even worse.
and if you can't i'm like you know like it's already bad enough that everybody on board died and everyone in the car died you don't need to make it worse thank you because i'm literally like you don't need to make that like i already scarier and more traumatizing like people die yeah like i i'm already upset yeah i'm upset that so that happened holy shit apparently i think it was a peck who was supposed to be renting one of the planes too and it might have been that actual plane and he ended up not renting it that day or using it that day to do something and it crashed wow and he was supposed
to be on it there was also an animal trainer who was on set because there's a scene with rottweilers where peck's character is chased and attacked in a cemetery by really angry vicious dogs hellhounds if you will uh but the dogs the rottweilers attacked the stuntman for real and they wouldn't stop oh my god and they bit through the paddings and and ignored the handlers and the animal trainer.
And I guess the stuntman ended up being okay, but he suffered actual injuries from it.
And it was very unlike these dogs to not listen to the handlers and the trainer.
Were they okay? They were okay.
So Richard Donner was leaving Harvey Bernhard's office.
Something else happens to the animal trainer, by the way.
We'll get to it. But he was leaving Bernhard's office after a meeting, and he was hit by a car.
car oh my god he was okay but like what the fuck he was actually he was hit by a car how do you know how long this production was like how long it took no i don't know exactly how long it took but it happened quick i'm gonna try to find out because i'm like all of these things are happening like was this a couple months exactly an executive producer mace there was staying at the london hilton with his wife while filming and it was bombed by the ira what and on november 12th they They were all there, executive producers, directors, actors.
All of them were having some kind of dinner at some restaurant.
And that restaurant was bombed by the IRA minutes before they arrived.
Oh, my God. This is over an 11 week period.
I was going to say it was quick.
11 weeks. All crammed into this period.
Oh, my God. And now there's a scene, speaking of the animal trainer, there's a scene in the movie where they go to a zoo.
do and damien's presence just his presence there makes all the animals like go crazy they're all screaming every they're flipping out stresses me out it's a really haunting and very scary scene yeah it's really good and they come across a group of baboons and the baboons freak the fuck out when they see damien and he's just smiling at them it's so scary and so the baboons attack the car they're in that they're driving through yeah and according to richard donner lee remick who played the mom was legitimately terrified while filming this sequence so her screams and the fear you see are very real
and they're what's in the final shot of the film so they use that animal trainer for these shots as well and everything was fine but the next day that animal trainer was killed by tigers what the fuck bernhard later said he was killed the day after we shot there he was killed by a tiger he grabbed him by the head and killed him instantly recently oh my god like what the fuck it's too many freak and what's even worse is it didn't end after filming so special effects supervisor john richardson was responsible for a really infamous scene it's a decapitation scene in the movie um it the man this man is like
really brutally beheaded by a sheet of glass sliding off the back of a truck it's very final destination yeah um it's really brutal well john richardson was in holland with his girlfriend liz moore on On August 13th, 1976, they were filming Richard Attenborough's A Bridge Too Far, and their car crashed.
He survived, very injured, but she was decapitated.
Stop. Now, really quickly, just because I looked into Liz, the girlfriend, the victim here, she was a really talented and really respected painter and sculptor.
She designed and sculpted Starchild in Stanley Kubrick's 2001 Space Odyssey.
Oh, wow. The nude furniture and a clockwork orange.
The C -3PO suit in Star Wars.
And worked with another artist named Brian Muir to create the finalized version of the stormtrooper helmets.
She was only 32 years old when she was killed.
Wow, imagine what she could have gone on to do.
And killed by decapitation.
That's terrifying. Now, allegedly, according to reports, he said he escaped from the vehicle and he saw a signpost. they were in holland pointing to the nearest town and it was a the town's name was omen and it was o -m -m -e -n stop and according to him the kilometer marker where this was was 66 .6 i don't know what to say to that another crew member a stunt person named elf joint also went from working on stunts and working on like the omen he went to the richard attenborough as a a bridge too far too so they both went over to that he had an accident almost immediately as well he was supposed to
be filmed jumping off a roof and he would land on some kind of like air bag obviously he fell from the roof really strangely according to all witnesses and somehow missed the airbag he ended up critical in the hospital luckily he did recover but when he woke up he said he was everyone said he was absolutely adamant he said i was pushed off that roof oh i I just got all the motherfucking chills.
And the way he fell everyone was like that was not a stunt man fall.
Like that wasn't a stunt man fall.
He was awkward. It was like he wasn't ready for it.
Like someone had pushed him and he wasn't ready to do an actual fall.
Like a safe fall. They said it was like super awkward and strange how he fell.
And he was like I was 100 % pushed.
I felt it. And he was up there alone?
Fuck that. that no one fuck that and to end it all out the kid who played damon harvey stevens he disappeared for years after he's a terrifying looking child and the crew of the documentary about this curse had to hire a private detective to search him down because they thought he was dead or missing what then when they talked to him he won't speak about the curse literally will not say a word you can't get them to open up about it what yeah which i'm like is that like what is that is that could that be that you are like playing into it because like good on you i would play the into that if i
could but like damn i would not play into that like that's why it's so like no because look we're talking about it well yeah but have people being like what is going on oh fuck dude i that's why i say a lot of those are not like man -made things they're like bombings of the ira they're like planes crashing they're lightning hitting planes there's people getting in like weird strange accidents like yeah sure there are coincidences but not that many and that's the thing a lot of the people involved in this production were like yeah in the beginning when you like hear about it you're like sure yeah
okay like you can kind of explain away some things but they're like as it goes you just stop being able to explain like how can you have that much bad luck i'm not well bitch i am not well bitch but i think it's an interesting i love a cursed movie set actually um shutter for a while had like a whole series of cursed movies yeah there's a lot of them it's like rosemary's baby there's poltergeist there's the exorcist exorcist certain and again a lot of them are like religion or like you know satan based kind of thing but i think it's one of those things i don't know maybe maybe i mean religion is one
of the oldest things in the world you know like so it's like maybe you're just messing with maybe it doesn't even necessarily have to do with like you know the devil and stuff like that it's like this you're messing with something ancient that you don't understand an ancient force that none of us understand maybe you know like maybe it's something to do with that i don't know who am i i feel like i'm gonna be very creeped out the next couple days whenever we talk about yeah i know me too because i love that feeling but like i also hate it at the same time yeah oh the end of my hallway is gonna freak
me out lately i've been freaked out by the end of my hallway oh yeah you might want to like clear that yeah clear that out yeah it's my spare bedroom too so yeah clear that out yeah definitely you don't want that being funny i think it's just because Because, honestly, there's a lot of laundry in there.
Then that's bad energy.
You're like, I just don't want to fold it.
So that's the bad energy.
No, that's why I'm freaked out.
It's dirty laundry.
It's like a couple of hampers full of laundry that I need to get done.
So maybe that's it.
That would freak me out, too.
I fucking hate laundry.
Yeah. That's like, that's wow.
That's bad vibes. That's bad vibes.
Bad stinky vibes. It's bad stinky vibes.
Oh, man. Creepy, creepy.
We love a haunted movie.
movie which you know these are and there was a lot of there's a lot of actual death involved here so it's um true crime it's got the true crime element um we should make this a series and like if you guys know of any cursed movies that you want us to look into like cursed movies cursed tv shows broadway shows productions cursed productions there you go because that might be kind of fun to look into totally i love a good curse every once in a while we need a little uh i don't want to to be cursed no i also i like to look into a curse they are very let me speak clearly with intent give the universe
the right words yeah but yeah and go listen to ghost new you know cover single because it's great i heard it i'm good you're gonna hear it a lot so what so there you go uh but yeah i hope everybody uh had a good weekend and watch Watch the omen.
And we hope you keep listening.
And we hope you keep it weird. But not so weird that you're the Antichrist. Or maybe do keep it that weird. Just up to your preference.
Yeah, whatever you want to do, man.
Keep it that weird. Keep it your kind of weird. Hey -o.
Don't hurt people. Bye.
If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad -free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
Prime members can listen ad -free on Amazon Music.
Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery .com slash survey.