The Houses October Built

This week’s episode was a suggestion by two of our Patrons when we asked: What are some Halloween movies we can cover this month?

It started out as a documentary on haunted attractions around the USA during this season, but became repurposed into a found footage-style horror film. Our reactions were mixed, but there is some fun footage and interviews here of real haunted house attractions and actors that will definitely get you in the mood for the season. Enjoy!

Expand to read episode transcript Automatic Transcript

The Houses October Built ()

Episode 316, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, here we are week two of our Halloween extravaganza, which is always my favorite time of the year, both, uh, personally and for our podcast because we get to do Halloween themed movies. This time around we decided to ask our patrons, uh, what movie.

That are Halloween themed cuz we have patrons now . Yeah. What Halloween themed movies that we don’t know about would you like us to do? And so, uh, we posed that question to them and we got a nice pile of recommendations actually. So that was nice, but we also posed it to everybody else on our Facebook page.

Leisha and Heather both recommended The Houses October Built, which was a movie I had heard about, was on our Halloween list. But, uh, we bumped up to the top because they recommended it. I mean, you know. Uh, two people. You can’t go wrong there. So here we are. Great. , . It’s not just one, but two. Uh, The Houses October Built from 2014, so that’s a good solid, like eight years ago, years ago.

Mm-hmm. that this movie came out and it was directed by a person named Bobby Roe, written by Zach Andrews, Bobby Roe, and Jason Zeta. When I researched this movie on imdb, I realized that, uh, it seems like Bobby Roe, Zach Andrews, and these. Haven’t really done much beyond this film and the sequel to it. So yeah, and 

Craig: I think it started out, uh, they did a documentary first, right?

Like this, this movie, it’s a found footage film about haunted attractions, like during the Halloween season. And I haven’t watched it, but I think that it initially was a documentary on the same subject. And then they made this movie, which obviously is fiction, but uh, I think that’s where it started. 

Todd: They must have used quite a bit of footage from their documentary for this, because they went probably filmed actual haunted attractions around the us.

I don’t know for sure because I didn’t do a ton of research, but it seems like a number of the interviews or whatever, it’s, it’s, it’s presented as a found footage movie of some people who are setting out to do a documentary about the scariest haunted attractions in the US during Halloween time. And, uh, I strongly suspect that a number of the people in this film, and quite a bit of the footage that we’ve seen were literally just people at these haunted attract.

Yeah, quite candid interviews with folks. So, um, not acted at all. And then the plot of this movie sort of framed around it. Uh, and, and you know, I don’t know about you Craig, but uh, well, I’m sure about you, I don’t know, but I’m sure , that um, you enjoy going out during Halloween time and enjoying some of these haunted attractions just as much as.

I do, 

Craig: but nobody else does, so I don’t get to do it very much. Um hmm. Alan’s 

Todd: not into this, huh? No. 

Craig: No. Oh God, no. . Absolutely not. growing up, like I always wanted to do these things, but my sister wasn’t interested. I remember one year when we were little kids, little kids, my parents took us to a haunted house at a frat, which was probably it.

It had to have been my dad. I’m sure my mom had nothing to do with this. My dad took us to like a haunted house at a fraternity. I live in a college town. We have three universities in the town, the small town that I live in. Um, and so the always, every October different fraternities, um, put together haunted attractions and my, my dad took me and my sister to one and like this is when we were little enough.

I, I remember vividly, I have no idea what my costume was. I think maybe I was a clown or something, but my sister was a cat and my, uh, my parents were also, we were not wealthy growing up. I mean, we were. Uh, when I was a kid, my parents were still in school and working. You know, my dad worked in a factory and he worked in a grocery store.

My mom was a nurse and they were still both furthering their education. By the time I was a teenager, they had both finished their educations, had good jobs, so we were comfortable middle class, but when we were little, we didn’t have a lot of money, and so my parents were not. Spending money on Halloween costumes.

So my sister was a cat, which means that she wore a dance outfit. She a black leotard. Leotard. Like the first leotard? Yeah. Yeah. White tights. Uh, a pair of cat ears was probably the only thing that was purchased. And then like one of my dad’s like, Work socks stuffed full of stuff in Pinder butt for a tail.

Todd: Yeah, . 

Craig: And we, we went through this, uh, haunted house and I remember it was scary. It wasn’t for kids. Um, I, I also remember that the guys, the fraternity guys were, were very nice. Um, and, and didn’t try. They didn’t go out of their way to scare us too bad because we were little kids. But I remember that my sister’s tail fell off in the haunted house, , and she was so, she was so distraught after we got out, like I, I, I don’t remember if there were tears, but she was so distraught after we got out and.

Fraternity boys, um, you know, in these scary costumes were so kind to us, and they, they went back inside and, and found her tail and brought 

Todd: it back out for us. They pinned the tail back on your sister . Yeah. 

Craig: I don’t, I, I hope they let my dad do the pinning, but, uh, , but yeah, that, that’s, that’s my big experience.

But they, they do, you know, around here every year they’re, they’re like, Corn mazes and, uh, haunted houses and stuff. I haven’t been to one in years, but I do love them. And so I, I was fascinated by the idea of this movie. I, I, I’ve seen it before. Uh, it was recommended to us to watch, and I do enjoy it for, I enjoy it because I do like to see.

These real, you know, haunted attractions cuz some of them are really impressive. Mm. And I would really like to go, you know, to some of the ones that you see here. Mm. But it makes for an interesting movie because it’s really not plot heavy. It’s, it’s really just them going around , you know, they take us through these different haun.

Attractions, which is kind of fun to see. And there is a plot, but it’s kind of, I don’t 

Todd: know. It’s threadbare. Yeah. It’s really threadbare. And ultimately I will say, I mean, you know, just throwing all my cards in the table right up front. It’s a little disappointing. We, we have an international audience here and so, you know, the more I live abroad and, and, and travel abroad, the more.

Understand wholeheartedly that Halloween is a distinctly American holiday. Yes. Doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world. However, over time, other parts of the world have adopted it, and so they may not have the same traditions, they may have created their own traditions. The idea of going through a haunted.

You know, this sort of, uh, attraction where you’re walking through something and getting scared. It’s not unique to the US but, um, I think that in October, maybe people around the world don’t realize that these attractions spring up Around the United States, there are people who make their whole living with these things.

If you drive a short distance from where you. You know, spent a lot of time together to like Kansas City or St. Louis, some other big city. For example, in Kansas City, I went to high school not far from Kansas City, and so every October we would drive into Kansas City around Halloween time, where for the whole month there were these places.

It’s actually usually a really bad part of town that you wouldn’t normally go. Except it’s a little safer during this time because there’s so much traffic. Mm-hmm. and these haunted houses exist. There are old warehouses that, um, back in the day were very bustling and since then have become abandoned and then purchased by people who have repurposed them into these haunted houses, and they’re not open year round.

They’re only open during the month of October, maybe a little bit into November, maybe a little bit into September. Yeah. And they pour a lot of money into these, these buildings to outfit them with different animatronics and different scenery and things like that every single year. And you can go, you pay some money, you walk through here with your friends and you just get scared and you wander through different scenes and things.

It’s, it’s so much fun. It’s super fun. Yeah, it’s super fun and it’s just, you know, again, it’s like watching a horror movie. We’ve talked about this before. Mm-hmm. , it’s a safe way to get scared to sort of real life experience, what it might be like to be, be sought by demons and monsters and things like that, but you know you’re gonna be okay.

There might be, even in the smallest town, there might be three or four of these va