When It Was Cool Dark

This Edgar Allen Poe themed dark drama debuted on Netflix in November starring, among other people, Mark Hamill... yes, Luke Skywalker as an evil attorney if you can believe it. Drawing from the Sackler family and the opioid crisis, this is the tale of the fall of a billionaire family who made their fortune off selling a deadly medication with no moral compass, sprinkled with a bit of the supernatural and told by the framework of Edgar Allen Poe. It doesn't sound like it should work, but it does.

Karl and Tonya from When It Was Cool takes a look back at the psychological thriller Knock at the Cabin starring former pro wrestling and MCU star Dave Batista. A mysterious foursome appear at a cabin where a family of three are staying with a strange and dark request- choose to kill a member of their family or the world will end. When they refuse, apocalyptic events begin unfolding.

Karl and Tonya from When It Was Cool return to discuss the new video game inspired horror movie Five Nights at Freddy's. While fans seem to love it and it has made a ton of money, critics have brutalized it. The truth, at least in our opinion, stands somewhere in-between! This also falls right into our pop culture wheelhouse as the animatronics in the movie (and game) are based on the old Showbiz Pizza animatronics which leads to some great fun. Is it creepy or is it fun? Let's talk Five Nights at Freddy's (There are spoilers aplenty so be warned!)

On this edition of When It Was Cool Dark Podcast, hosts Karl and Tonya discuss the latest prequel for the Stephen King Pet Semetary franchise: Bloodline. The seeds for this story were planted in the original 1989 movie/book where we learn about a young Judd, Timmy, his dog, and the origin of the pet cemetery. This movie has seen some harsh criticism and we will discuss why. So, grab some popcorn and come prepare for Halloween with us as we journey to the Pet Semetary.

When It Was Cool Dark looks back at 1939's Universal Monster movie Son of Frankenstein where the son of the original Dr. Frankenstein comes to claim his family estate and discovers The Monster has been saved by Ygor (played by Bela Lugosi of Dracula fame) and is being used as a weapon against Ygor's enemies. Karl and Tonya (from When It Was Cool website) discuss the movie and the changes in macabre films over the years and what are the modern equivalents of this type cinema.

Karl Stern discusses the mysterious Alaska Triangle where supposedly nearly 20,000 have gone missing. There are also reports of UFOs and UAPs and even its own native Bigfoot like creature, the Wendigo! Planes have vanished without a trace and even a high-level U.S. Congressman has gone missing. Is there something going on in this vast stretch of Alaskan wilderness or is this just another mystery that isn't really that mysterious? There is one very strange case in the Alaska Triangle that seems to defy explanation. Join us as we discuss the Alaska Triangle. Support us on Patreon!

If the headlines of today's newspapers sudden screamed "The United States in Possession of Alien Spacecraft!" the world would go crazy. The 24 hour news stations would leap on the story (until the next crisis came along or could be invented) but it was be... well... big news. Yet, it has already happened. Thanks to archives of Newspapers.com, podcast host Karl Stern digs into the start of the "Flying Saucer" sensation that gripped the United States (and later the world) around the time of the reported Roswell, NM UFO crash. 

For several years now you may have been periodically reading headlines like, "Harvard Professor Believes Object Traveling Through Solar System is Alien Space Craft", or recently, "Harvard Professor Discovers Remains of Alien Technology on Earth". So who is this Harvard Professor? He is Avi Loeb and he is, in fact, a Harvard Professor. But what's his deal? If a Harvard Professor has, supposedly discovered all of this why has the world turned upside down at his "discoveries"? Let's dig deeper into who is this Alien discovering Harvard professor and why does his name keep coming up in the news and... has he discovered evidence for aliens?

We need to be able to trust the gatekeepers of science. Science and scientific ideals are at the center of modern political warfare and science should be held to the course of political winds. We need science to be firm and accountable. But what happens when the very process that oversees acceptable science becomes corrupted. There is an outcry among the scientific community that this may well be happening due to a corruption of the peer review process. What is peer review and how could it be manipulated? That is the topic on this edition of When It Was Cool Dark Podcast.

When It Was Cool Dark continues to explore the greatest mysteries of the universe (and, perhaps, beyond) and this episode host Karl Stern takes a look at Satan or, The Devil. It's almost irrelevant if you believe in The Devil or not because billions of other do and those people make up large portions of the government you are under, the places you work, and the people that surround you. So, your life is influenced by The Devil whether you believe in it or not. But you might be surprised that a lot of what you think you know about the ultimate evil is not actually written in religious cannon. This week we look at misconceptions about the devil and what the texts really say.