Pod Insights Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries 96. Heart Starts Pounding Wrapped! About this episode What was HSPs most downloaded episode? What was my favorite episode to make? Which one scared me the most? This is the Heart Starts Pounding Wrapped Report!
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2:04 Kaelyn Moore? Welcome to a very special year end edition of the Heart Starts Pounding podcast, a podcast of horrors, hauntings and mysteries, a postmortem episode, some might say. I'm your host, Kayla Moore, and today I'm actually joined by the show's producer, who's normally behind the scenes, Mr. Matt Brown.
2:22 Speaker 01 Hello.
2:23 Kaelyn Moore? Welcome to the show.
2:24 Speaker 01 Thank you for having me to the show.
2:26 Kaelyn Moore? So Matt does a lot behind the scenes. I think maybe people don't realize how much it takes to actually produce the show, but there's a lot that goes into it with the research and actually putting together the episodes and the sound design and everything. So Matt's been doing a lot of the behind the scenes work on the show.
2:44 Speaker 01 Yeah, I kind of oversee those things and then assistant editorial process and all that kind of stuff.
2:50 Kaelyn Moore? So today we just kind of wanted to talk a little bit about a year in review for the show, some of our favorite episodes to work on, some of your favorite episodes. I have some exciting stats on the show that I want to share with everyone.
3:02 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:03 Kaelyn Moore? And then we also just wanted to share some of our top recommendations for the year of movies I loved and documentaries. I just wanted to end on some things that you guys can go watch after this that I really loved from 2024.
3:17 Speaker 01 That's great.
3:17 Kaelyn Moore? So to start, Matt, I was going to ask you what you thought the most popular episode was, but you're the producer of the show, so you know what the most popular episode was.
3:28 Speaker 01 I do tend to look at the statistics, yes.
3:31 Kaelyn Moore? So the most listened to episode of the year is...
3:35 Speaker 01 Okay, does the audience, do you think, we'll see if they think they know before you call it out.
3:41 Kaelyn Moore? Yeah, I'm curious. So think about what you think maybe the most popular episode was this year. It is one of the Urban Legends episodes, which are a favorite of mine to make.
3:50 Speaker 01 Yep, Urban Legends, Folklore.
3:52 Kaelyn Moore? Urban Legends and Folklore tend to be the most popular, and it was the Australia... Episode of
3:59 Speaker 01 That was a crazy episode.
4:00 Kaelyn Moore? That was such a good episode because as everyone knows, a lot of really scary stuff happens in Australia.
4:08 Speaker 01 Yeah, everything in Australia is scary.
4:11 Kaelyn Moore? All of the normal things that shouldn't be scary are scary in Australia.
4:15 Speaker 01 It's just because so many things can kill you instantly.
4:17 Kaelyn Moore? Yeah, there's a lot of like poisonous things and spiders, something's going on over there. But the stories we found for, if you don't remember, we found like the shark arm case.
4:26 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, the shark arm case was insane because I was actually doing the research for that episode. And I think there's like at least one or two full books on that. And I think I read a couple of books on it. And I don't know if you want to go through kind of recap what that story was for those who haven't listened in case, in case anyone has it.
4:45 Kaelyn Moore? So the urban legend in the area is that someone captured a shark and put it in a tank on land for a bunch of people to come see.
4:54 Speaker 01 It's like an amusement park, right?
4:55 Kaelyn Moore? For an amusement park and as a bunch of kids had their little hands pressed up to the glass, the shark threw up and it threw up a human arm and that led to a cold case investigation. And that is exactly what happened.
5:08 Speaker 01 Yeah.
5:09 Kaelyn Moore? This was back in the early 1900s.
5:11 Speaker 01 Right.
5:11 Kaelyn Moore? Not a lot of stuff to do.
5:13 Speaker 01 No. So you go to the amusement park with your family. You're like, hey, this is a great idea for a family outing.
5:17 Kaelyn Moore? But at the amusement park, someone thought of the bright idea of let's just catch a shark from the ocean and put it on display.
5:24 Speaker 01 It's a good attraction. Yeah.
5:26 Kaelyn Moore? Not realizing like sharks get incredibly sad when you do that.
5:30 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think that, so I remember reading, that's what they thought had happened because this shark was being very lethargic. So they're like, ah, he's just sad that he's in the cage, not like ill because he
5:41 Kaelyn Moore? He's just a little down.
5:42 Speaker 01 A person.
5:42 Kaelyn Moore? Yeah, right.
5:43 Speaker 01 Or a person's arm.
5:44 Kaelyn Moore? Yeah, right, right, right. But then it ended up that he got sick and they, it launched into this whole cold case investigation. That was one of the stories.
5:52 Speaker 01 Yeah.
5:52 Kaelyn Moore? There was also the story of the button man.
5:54 Speaker 01 Right, right. The man who makes buttons out of like antlers.
5:58 Kaelyn Moore? A very real person who lives in the brush.
6:00 Speaker 01 Yeah, there was actually in the research in that, there's actually like a New York Times like article where a journalist went around and talked to all these people who knew the button. Button Man. So it's like, at some point, there's this urban legend of a guy, but then also a lot of people disappeared. And then also, this person was a real person.
6:16 Kaelyn Moore? My favorite part of that story is that people were disappearing in the area and everyone was like, oh, maybe the Button Man has something to do with it. And the cops went to him and he was like, oh, I was the last person to actually see these people that disappeared. Let me help you. And it was like, very helpful in the investigation and had nothing to do with it.
6:33 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah. You're like, oh, let's go ask the Button Man. You're like, surely that's an urban legend. Like, no, he's real. We talked to him.
6:38 Kaelyn Moore? He is a real guy, but very eerie nonetheless. So I'm looking forward to exploring more of the shenanigans that happens in Australia.
6:46 Speaker 01 I think that was also popular because we have a lot of listeners in Australia.
6:50 Kaelyn Moore? Yeah.
6:51 Speaker 01 It's probably like number two or number three. It's like the US, the UK and Australia.
6:55 Kaelyn Moore? I think Sydney is like our third largest city.
6:58 Speaker 01 Yeah. So shout out to everyone down under who listens to the podcast.
7:01 Kaelyn Moore? We have to do a tour there at some point or something, some sort of Heart Starts Pounding event.
7:04 Speaker 01 Happy summer Christmas to everyone.
7:06 Kaelyn Moore? Yeah. Happy summer Christmas, Australia. Okay. I'm going to ask you, what was your favorite episode to work on this year?
7:15 Speaker 01 I think my favorite one, well, okay. So there's two. I think probably my favorite was the woman who fell from the sky.
7:24 Kaelyn Moore? Oh, Juliana Kopka?
7:25 Speaker 01 Mm hmm.
7:26 Kaelyn Moore? That story is wild.
7:27 Speaker 01 That's another one that I read a book for because I was still at that point, kind of doing research. That's when our process with Heart Starts Pounding, right? Is you kind of did literally every part of it yourself for quite a while. And then we got a sound design person on and then it's, I would kind of do something until we could get a system in place to actually like, get someone else to do it. And so that was a period, like the Juliana story, did a lot of reading and research, watched the Werner Herzog documentary about that as well.
7:57 Kaelyn Moore? Documentary.
7:58 Speaker 01 And it's just a crazy, again, I don't know if you want to recap it for those people who haven't listened to that episode.
8:05 Kaelyn Moore? I mean, she fell out of a plane. That's really the crux of the story is this 17 year old girl got on a plane in Peru with her mom and the plane fell apart in the sky. It got hit by lightning and she fell out and she survived and then had to get
8:19 Speaker 01 Yeah, fell out of a plane.
8:21 Kaelyn Moore? At 10,000 feet and then had to get out of the rainforest back to safety. The whole story is so wild. I think about it every single time I fly. I have cursed myself.
8:32 Speaker 01 Yeah, I do remember we took a flight after that and you were like, oh, this is the row that Juliana was on. And I was like, it's a great thought. Great thought to be on when you're on a plane.
8:40 Kaelyn Moore? Every time I see that, that uh, window seat that she was in.
8:45 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's like row 17, I think.
8:47 Kaelyn Moore? 17F.
8:47 Speaker 01 Yeah.
8:48 Kaelyn Moore? Not a good sign. You'll be fine. Everyone's gonna be fine. Flying was very dangerous in the seventies when this happened, especially over the Andes. And we're, we're okay now. But that was a great one to do.
8:59 Speaker 01 Yeah. What, what about you? What was your favorite to kind of dig into this year?
9:02 Kaelyn Moore? I was trying to make a list and I wrote down almost every episode, but uh, I will say highlights were I really enjoyed doing the Penhurst episode.
9:12 Speaker 01 Penhurst asylum?
9:13 Kaelyn Moore? Penhurst asylum because that is such an important history that people, a lot of people don't know about. It, it ties into like the history of disability rights in America and also has some really spooky ghost stories. In the meantime, like I love this, the stories that blend dark history that we can kind of uncover and ghost stories. And that one just really had all of it. So it was, that one was very interesting to me. And then I also wrote down, um, I really enjoyed doing the dark summer series.
9:49 Speaker 01 Yeah.
9:50 Kaelyn Moore? And having kind of a framework to do episodes. And within that, the Olympics episode that we did.
9:56 Speaker 01 Oh, right.
9:57 Kaelyn Moore? Was probably the most interested.
9:59 Speaker 01 Random St. Louis quasi Olympics.
10:03 Kaelyn Moore? The Olympics, no one has heard of.
10:05 Speaker 01 Yeah.
10:07 Kaelyn Moore? That whole Otobanga, his story was so interesting. So that one, that was a highlight for me, being able to.
10:13 Speaker 01 It was like, what if the Olympics were held at a carnival by amateurs?
10:18 Kaelyn Moore? Yeah, right, right.
10:19 Speaker 01 That's, that's like the whole vibe of that. They're like, oh, let's do some experiments, some testing.
10:24 Kaelyn Moore? We have a bunch of like racist science that we can try out, like horrible stuff.
10:29 Speaker 01 Yeah.
10:30 Kaelyn Moore? And then, but part of that episode, I really loved hearing the firsthand accounts from the people who were in the human zoos.
10:38 Speaker 01 Right.
10:38 Kaelyn Moore? And, cause it wasn't horrible for all of them, all of the time. And some of them had like weird moments of laughter and like inside jokes with each other. Like it was just really interesting hearing more of their perspective and building them out as like real people.
10:54 Speaker 01 Yeah, right, right.
10:55 Kaelyn Moore? Um, and then it was our least popular episodes of the year by a wide margin, but I did like doing the Dark Hollywood series.
11:05 Speaker 01 Oh, right. Dark Hollywood, which was back in the spring. That was the first sort of themed.
11:09 Kaelyn Moore? Back in the spring. I, I get very, um, like inspired by things I read and listened to. And in the spring, I was just consuming a lot of like old movies and I was listening to, you must remember this, um, Karina Longworth's podcast about old Hollywood. And just getting like, we were living in LA and we were leaving LA. So I was getting like really nostalgic for LA things. And I was like, let's just do dark Hollywood stories.
11:35 Speaker 01 I think for anyone who lives in LA, like you get a little sucked in by the kind of noir crime-ish-ness of it.
11:42 Kaelyn Moore? Yeah.
11:42 Speaker 01 At some point in your stay, right? We were both there 10 years.
11:46 Kaelyn Moore? Yeah. And now we're in Austin and I did the episode before we lived in Austin on if there's a serial killer here.
11:52 Speaker 01 The rainy street.
11:53 Kaelyn Moore? And now that I'm here, everyone talks about it. Everyone really thinks that there's something going on in the city. So I, I want to explore that a little bit more.
12:00 Speaker 01 Yeah.
12:01 Kaelyn Moore? Hear some more stories from people. Um, I was also going to ask, what episode scared you the most this year?
12:09 Speaker 01 Oh, that's a good question.
12:09 Kaelyn Moore? When I was thinking about it, I wrote down something I wasn't expecting.
12:12 Speaker 01 Yeah. What, wait, what did you write down? You go first.
12:14 Kaelyn Moore? So. By scared, I mean, the one where as I was doing the research and writing, like, as, I mean, true to the show, like, my heart was pounding. It was actually the Chejong family episode.
12:26 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah.
12:26 Kaelyn Moore? Because I was trying to write this, the, like, perspective of the woman who was trapped with the family as they were killing and eating people. And I just kept getting so scared for her, even though I knew she was gonna be okay, just living in that house and trying to understand, like, what she must have been feeling and seeing. And that really, I think, because being trapped is one of my biggest fears.
12:52 Speaker 01 Yeah, that episode, another one I did the research for. So I spent a lot of, a lot of time in that world. That, when you can't understand something, I think that's what, like, makes it really scary. And I think it's so hard to, like, relate to, even though there is context for why they did what they did. You're like, this doesn't, one, they didn't want to be human, and they kind of said that they weren't human.
13:16 Kaelyn Moore? Yeah, they wanted to be devils.
13:17 Speaker 01 Exactly. And so you're like, this is, I have no way to relate to this. I can't really, like, rationalize it.
13:23 Kaelyn Moore? Yeah.
13:24 Speaker 01 So, yeah, that was a really, really creepy episode.
13:27 Kaelyn Moore? And I get scared when I, yeah, when you don't understand a person's mindset, because then it feels like you can't stop them.
13:33 Speaker 01 Yeah, right. It's sort of like Jason or something. It's unstoppable force.
13:37 Kaelyn Moore? Right. There's not really rhyme or reason. So, like, they could attack you at any moment.
13:42 Speaker 01 Yeah, I'm trying to think of what would have been the most scary for me out of that. And I don't know, maybe like amusement park horror in the dark summer. And, and I say that because I'm already scared of, like, being decapitated on amusement park rides.
14:02 Kaelyn Moore? For those listening, you can't tell, but Matt is six foot nine.
14:06 Speaker 01 Right.
14:06 Kaelyn Moore? And so he is already a risk whenever we go do anything.
14:10 Speaker 01 Yeah. So if I, if I can't verify that Shaquille O'Neal has ridden a ride, I probably am just not gonna go on it. If he's been on it, it's safe. So it's fine.
14:18 Kaelyn Moore? Yeah, you have to, like, look at, as you're going on the ride, like, are there photos of celebrities? Are there any basketball players in here that have been on this ride?
14:24 Speaker 01 Yeah, but I think we talked about that at the time, because I spent a lot of time at Six Flags over Texas. I grew up in North Texas. And we would spend like all summer there when we were like in junior high and high school. And I think someone did die like later on one of those rides because it was just got so rickety and so violent, like people would shake so violently.
14:43 Kaelyn Moore? Yeah.
14:43 Speaker 01 So I think that is maybe, that's such a practical fear to me. Um, and then realizing like you talk about with like Schlitterbahn, these are all places and names of places, things I grew up with. We're like, these have not been like inspected that much.
14:59 Kaelyn Moore? Right, right. And you know it as you're going to the park.
15:01 Speaker 01 Right.
15:01 Kaelyn Moore? It's not been expected. Like that was one thing.
15:03 Speaker 01 Well, I didn't, but now I do. So thank you.
15:05 Kaelyn Moore? Interesting to learn about wooden coasters, how fast they decay.
15:10 Speaker 01 Mm hmm.
15:10 Kaelyn Moore? So I got a lot of listeners that emailed me afterwards that were like, oh my gosh, I didn't even think about that. I just figured like the, the wooden coaster at my local theme park was really rickety. I didn't realize it's because it was literally falling apart.
15:25 Speaker 01 Yeah.
15:26 Kaelyn Moore? And hadn't been fixed in years. So if you're on a wooden coaster and it's bouncing around a lot, or you're being shaken a lot, like it's because the wood is decaying and you have to repair it.
15:34 Speaker 01 That was the Texas Giant, which was at the time, the largest, I think, wooden roller coaster in the world.
15:39 Kaelyn Moore? Hmm.
15:40 Speaker 01 And it was great when it first opened. And then by the time I graduated high school, we were like, let's not ride that ride anymore.
15:45 Kaelyn Moore? Yeah.
15:46 Speaker 01 It was shit. You would just get like your head, like your brain jostled loose.
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18:44 Kaelyn Moore? Go to sijohome.com and use code HSP to get 20% off your first order. That's s i j o h o m e dot com and use code HSP for 20% off at checkout. For you. I was gonna say something, so I, kind of in line with just hearing from listeners a lot. I do. Hear from people who are featured in episodes and family members of people who are featured in episodes. I kind of wanted to share that with someone.
19:09 Speaker 01 Really recently with the with the Runwald family, right?
19:14 Kaelyn Moore? Yeah, I heard from one of the brothers.
19:16 Speaker 01 Yeah.
19:17 Kaelyn Moore? They heard the episode and they, yeah, talked about it. And that was, that was really cool to hear from them. I heard from Coco, who was in the stalking episode. She was the one being stalked by Rebecca.
19:30 Speaker 01 Right.
19:30 Kaelyn Moore? So Coco lives in Venezuela and she sent me a message on Instagram that said, hi, Kalen, I'm Coco. You mentioned me in your podcast episode about the Rebecca case. I wanted to thank you for sharing my story and specifically for sharing it in a professional way. To be honest with you, it's been a very difficult journey to share my story with the world. And I sincerely appreciate when someone talks about the case in a respectful and honest tone, which I think you did. I just wanted to reach out to you and let you know that I'm very grateful and I like the episode very much. I'm a huge true crime fan, ironically, and you have a new listener. My best regards. Keep up the good work. Also, if you want to know anything out of the record on my experience, I'm here to help or I'm here to share. And so I did ask her some stuff, but it was off the record.
20:13 Kaelyn Moore? But the gist of it is that everyone is doing much better.
20:17 Speaker 01 Yeah, that was an insane story. It's really cool to hear from her. And I think that was one thing you talk about in that episode is that the reason that there was some investigative movement on it was because it became such a big sort of social media thing.
20:31 Kaelyn Moore? Yeah, because Coco took to Twitter and was like, I don't know what to do with this. And so I'm just going to tweet about it. And that sort of got picked up by a few news organizations. And then I think it was a listener. Yeah, it was, it was one of our listeners who sent me an email about it. So if you ever have a story that you're like, this would maybe make a good Heart Starts Pounding episode, please send those in. I read those emails and sometimes they do end up being episodes. So thank you to that listener. Thank you to Coco. That was so brave of her to share that whole story. I, I can't even imagine because it was so scary, like the videos and the audio that came out of that case was horrifying. So it was just, it was nice to hear from her. And yeah, I was just really glad to hear she's doing so much better.
21:14 Speaker 01 Yeah, I mean, we talk about that a lot, obviously, when you're looking at topics to do for the show. And do you want to talk about something? I think something you bring up a lot is, is there a reason for me to tell this story?
21:28 Kaelyn Moore? Yeah.
21:28 Speaker 01 Beyond just. You know, shock value or
21:32 Kaelyn Moore? Yeah, we're not salacious. We don't want to be salacious here.
21:35 Speaker 01 So I think it's really cool when you hear from people who are just trying to get the word out about things.
21:41 Kaelyn Moore? Yeah, yeah, definitely. Who are just trying to bring attention to it.
21:45 Speaker 01 Yeah.
21:46 Kaelyn Moore? So I have written down that this next segment, you're going to read reviews, which I'm a little
21:53 Speaker 01 Okay.
21:54 Kaelyn Moore? nervous about.
21:56 Speaker 01 Uh, okay. So there are a lot of, uh, reviews for Hard Starts Pounding, which we love. Thank you to everyone who leaves those. They are super helpful.
22:04 Kaelyn Moore? That really helps. For some reason on the Apple charts, they really prioritize reviews. So that really helps us on the charts.
22:10 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think they're like, oh, there's real people listening to this and that's helpful. So thank you to everyone who leaves those. I, I wanted to read one. This is, uh, from earlier this October, Maria, true crime fan. So she loves the podcast. I love how the host tells the stories. I get immersed into them and she makes time at work go by so fast. I, I want to read that because I love seeing in the reviews where people listen to the show.
22:31 Kaelyn Moore? Yes. Yeah.
22:33 Speaker 01 So there are so many people that listen at work. There was another review and we read this several episodes back prior to doing the long haul trucking episode, but, uh, a woman talks about her and her husband both, I think, do long haul truck driving and listen when they're on the road. We have people who talk about how it makes time at the gym go faster. I think we've talked a lot about rogue detecting society this year and this idea of like the physical place that everyone sort of exists when they listen.
23:01 Kaelyn Moore? Yeah.
23:02 Speaker 01 And I think that's really cool to hear when you guys leave reviews, um, and makes that like a little bit more real, which is something I know you've talked about as well. It's like, oh, there's real people. It's not just me talking into the abyss.
23:13 Kaelyn Moore? Yeah, that's kind of, I, this kind of leads to our next segment, but, uh, yeah, because I make this show just in the house, like for a long time it was just in the closet. So sometimes it's like, it just doesn't feel real that there's people that listen to it. I can see on the computer that there's people that listen to it, but I never get like stopped in the street or anything.
23:35 Speaker 01 Yeah.
23:35 Kaelyn Moore? Um, but when I went and did a live show with Annie Elise this year, a couple of people afterwards were like, oh my God, I listened to your show. And I was like, that's crazy. Will you take a picture with me? So I can document this moment that you're real. That was really fun, meeting people who listen to the show.
23:52 Speaker 01 Yeah, I actually, so.
23:55 Speaker 01 I want to read this other one from, this is from Riash613, who says, "I love this podcast isn't telling the same boring stories that we've all heard a thousand times." So I wondered, first of all, thank you for that comment, but I wonder, maybe just talk about like, how you found these episodes and how you, what you're excited, like, I guess what excites you about like getting to tell these stories and like how you kind of found fresh angles in?
24:20 Kaelyn Moore? Oh, yeah. I just, I get very interested in stories that I haven't heard before. Like, um, one that I brought up was the, in the Italy episode, Italy, A Murder and a Mystery, I think it was called, but the Pietro Masso case, that was like the Italian Menendez brothers. I just had never heard that story before and it, I really just found it in a bunch of old newspapers. And from like someone telling me about it when I was like in Italy. So that was a cool one to explore. There's just a lot that's told out there and I don't always know what I can add to it. If you can just go listen to another show, talk about it. So,
25:02 Kaelyn Moore? I try to do cases that aren't as well-known, ones that have action items if people are still missing or we're still like looking for stuff. And then a lot of the ghosty ones, like there's, I don't know, I just find, try to find ones that I feel really interested in and can find a new angle into.
25:20 Speaker 01 Well, and it's funny because so many of the most requested episodes from listeners or from Patreon members, when they're doing the suggested bonus episodes are things that every podcast has covered. So I think there is something to say, like, people just want to hear their favorite storyteller tell a story.
25:35 Kaelyn Moore? And I love that, like especially Penhurst. I think a lot of people have heard about Penhurst, but I just wanted to find new stories within Penhurst to tell, like the people at the end who got married. And yeah, I don't know. I think there's totally reason to tell people's favorite stories again and just try to find new ways into it.
25:53 Speaker 01 So one more review that I wanted to read, this is from earlier this year from Aspen gal. Can I get enough? I'm just gonna read part of it.
26:02 Speaker 01 She says she has been listening since the fourth episode.
26:05 Kaelyn Moore? Oh gosh, I'm sorry.
26:06 Speaker 01 And the show actually inspired me to dig into the history of Pitt County, which is where Aspen, Aspen courthouse, where she works, and especially Ted Bundy's escape from the second story window.
26:17 Kaelyn Moore? Oh my God, you're kidding.
26:18 Speaker 01 No. So that's a cool, I was actually in Aspen adjacent, working on something like a year ago. Cause I had no idea Ted Bundy had any sort of like history there. And I was like, what crimes happened here? Because that's what you do when you work at Heart Starts Pounding. You say what bad things have happened in this place. And so that's really cool to hear that there are people who get kind of inspired to dig into the world around them through the show.
26:42 Kaelyn Moore? I love that. If you are out there digging around because you're inspired because of Heart Starts Pounding, please let me know what you're looking into and what you find. I'm so curious. I do, like especially within the Patreon, I do see people who go to local graveyards and are looking at the stones and trying to do research on those people. I, I love that stuff so much. I get so excited by that kind of research. So please keep me posted what you find about him.
27:11 Speaker 01 I think that's the fun, like the idea of the Rogue Detecting Society community is like there, people are just interested in this stuff and it is following your dark curiosity.
27:19 Kaelyn Moore? Yeah, all the way down the rabbit hole.
27:21 Speaker 01 Yeah.
27:21 Kaelyn Moore? Yeah, I love that.
27:23 Speaker 01 I'll give you your phone back.
27:24 Kaelyn Moore? Thank you. Um, okay. Do we want to talk about some other just highlights from the year?
27:29 Speaker 01 Yeah, we should.
27:30 Kaelyn Moore? And then we'll get into some recommendations for the audience. So I have written down as my highlights of the year is doing the show with Annie Elise. The live show was great.
27:40 Speaker 01 Yeah.
27:40 Kaelyn Moore? I had never done a live show for Heart Starts Pounding before.
27:43 Speaker 01 And you were with Annie, that was Annie Elise's tour and also someone else was there with you, right?
27:48 Kaelyn Moore? Kimberly.
27:49 Speaker 01 Yeah, Kimberly.
27:49 Kaelyn Moore? Kimberly, who does true crime.
27:51 Speaker 01 Yeah.
27:51 Kaelyn Moore? Yeah. So we just had a segment where we went and sat on stage with Annie and talked about like recent true crime cases. We talked about the Menendez brothers and stuff. That was really interesting and it was fun to be on stage and I got to meet some of you guys. And then I just got to meet a lot of other podcasters and work with them too this year, which was amazing. So on January 6th, we have our episode with Psychopedia coming out.
28:15 Speaker 01 Yeah, so that's next week.
28:17 Kaelyn Moore? Yeah, Monday.
28:18 Speaker 01 Yeah.
28:19 Kaelyn Moore? That was, that was awesome. I love that so much.
28:22 Speaker 01 Yeah, Tank and Slater, I actually just went back because I was going through the edit for the video. And that's just such an interesting episode. Like, it's really cool to listen to their experience and some of their history and their backstory and like Slater's whole family, like the law firm and how involved they are actually like in true crime and working with victims. So that's a really cool. I definitely encourage you guys to check out that crossover.
28:45 Kaelyn Moore? Slater, like, yeah, really inspires me with like the work that she, the real work she does in the real world. I absolutely love that. Um, I got to meet Amanda Montel, who does Cultish.
28:56 Speaker 01 Right. Cultish, the book.
28:58 Kaelyn Moore? Wrote the book Cultish and it sounds like a cult, the podcast. And then I did a travel episode, which I can kind of talk about now.
29:06 Speaker 01 You can kind of talk about that. That was last month.
29:08 Kaelyn Moore? February, I did a travel episode last month with Two Girls, One Ghost.
29:12 Speaker 01 Yeah. So that was a really cool, everyone else you've kind of collaborated with is very true crime. This was the first ghost collaboration.
29:19 Kaelyn Moore? And boy, oh, boy, are we doing it again. We talked about it afterwards. We were like, we're going to every haunted location in the country. We had so much fun. We talked to a ghost.
29:29 Speaker 01 Yeah.
29:30 Kaelyn Moore? Absolutely communicated with something in that house. I cannot wait to share that episode with everyone, but that, that was like a huge highlight of the year. And we did that episode in Salem.
29:39 Speaker 01 Yeah.
29:40 Kaelyn Moore? So.
29:40 Speaker 01 So I think we've mentioned probably at some point on the show, you were traveling and probably people who were on the Patreon got a little insight into what was going on.
29:48 Kaelyn Moore? Yeah, I talked about it a lot on the Patreon, but I didn't say who it was with. So now everyone knows it was Two Girls, One Ghost.
29:53 Speaker 01 Yeah.
29:53 Kaelyn Moore? That was fun. If you guys also have other shows that you listen to, that you want me to collab with, that's a, that's on my vision board for 2025 is just all of the shows that I'm a fan of. I really want to like start working with them more. So I'm excited for that.
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32:40 Kaelyn Moore? Um, okay, and then for this final segment, I just wanted to kind of name some documentaries and movies that I really loved this year.
32:48 Speaker 01 Yeah, because you consume a ton of stuff.
32:51 Kaelyn Moore? I'm a consumer. Yeah, I'm a big consumer.
32:53 Speaker 01 We kind of have to, right? It's part of like surfacing and curating the interesting stuff. You have to know everything that's out there.
32:59 Kaelyn Moore? I also just love this stuff. I love watching the documentaries. I love horror movies. So I just watch a lot of them. And then Matt, you also watch a lot of these too, with me and on your own. So I had some highlights from the year. Let's talk about documentaries first.
33:12 Speaker 01 Yeah.
33:14 Kaelyn Moore? I would say, so I'm gonna go backwards from four. I have four that I want to talk about. Number four, I have Quiet on Set.
33:22 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah, the Nickelodeon documentary. I did watch a lot of that.
33:26 Kaelyn Moore? That one brought up some really heavy conversations that I'm glad happened. And I think that everyone's just been so curious about the Nickelodeon situation for so long that it was good to finally hear someone talk about it in a investigative way.
33:42 Speaker 01 Yeah.
33:43 Kaelyn Moore? Um, really, really sad, huge trigger warnings for that one. But if you have a deep, dark curiosity for like kids content, the dark stuff that goes on.
33:56 Speaker 01 Well, I think for so many people like grew up on Nickelodeon, right?
33:58 Kaelyn Moore? Oh, me, yeah. It was all those shows that I watched growing up.
34:02 Speaker 01 I think millennials and... Going down to Gen Z, probably both grew up on Nickelodeon because it was from the early 90s until like, really today it's still going, but I think was huge for so many of us growing up.
34:14 Kaelyn Moore? It's sad to go back and think of like watching those shows and loving those shows and knowing that some of those stars in the shows were suffering really badly. It's really heartbreaking. Um, but yeah, interesting if you have the stomach for it. And then number three, I have Into the Fire, The Lost Daughter, which is on Netflix in the US.
34:32 Speaker 01 Okay. I remember you talking about this one. You actually, we're just talking about it again recently, but what was the story there?
34:39 Kaelyn Moore? Produced by Charlize Theron, which is really cool. It is a mystery about a missing girl. Basically a woman has a daughter at like 17 years old and so gives her up for adoption. And then years later, like 34 years later, she finds out that that daughter she gave up for adoption actually went missing when she turned around 13 or 14.
35:04 Kaelyn Moore? And the mom is like, well, what happened? And they're like, ah, we don't know. She ran away. She was a 13 year old girl and she ran away.
35:10 Speaker 01 Okay.
35:11 Kaelyn Moore? Come to find out, there's a lot of weird stuff going on with the dad and the family she got adopted into. But what I love the most about the documentary is there's a larger story inside of the documentary about a serial killer, but it is really told from the perspective of the mother searching for justice and really focuses on the girl that went missing.
35:33 Speaker 01 Right. Right. It's not just this deep dive into the psychology of the serial killer.
35:37 Kaelyn Moore? Yeah. And like what was going on in his twisted mind. He's kind of like a side character to the women of the story. And I loved the way they told the story and it, I don't want to give too much away because the whole time my jaw was on the floor. It's called Into the Fire, colon, The Lost Daughter.
35:54 Speaker 01 Okay.
35:54 Kaelyn Moore? I thought it was done so well.
35:57 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's probably one a lot of people haven't heard of.
36:00 Kaelyn Moore? Yeah, it didn't really come out to a bunch of fanfare on Netflix, but I, it's so high on my list, obviously. I watched a ton and these are my top four, but um, number two. Is not, is a very feel-good documentary in a way where you actually feel so good you cry the whole time. You're like sad and happy the whole time. It's called The Remarkable Life of Ibelin.
36:23 Speaker 01 Ibelin?
36:24 Kaelyn Moore? Yeah, I B E L I N.
36:26 Speaker 01 Okay, what is, uh, what's that? I don't remember that one.
36:29 Kaelyn Moore? That one is about, I watched it, I don't think you were here when I was watching it, because you would have seen me crying my eyes out. But it's about this boy who has a very severe form of muscular dystrophy and dies when he's 25. And he, by the time he passed away, he could only use his fingers. He like really did not have control over his body anymore. And after he passes away, his parents were devastated because they lost their son, but also they didn't think that anyone would care because he didn't have a lot of friends.
37:00 Speaker 01 Yeah.
37:00 Kaelyn Moore? But they knew that he kind of kept this blog on and off. So they go to his blog, they log in, and they just type a message. Hey, his name was Mats. Mats passed away. If anyone wants to contact us, here's my email. And they give the dad's email. And within, over the next like 24 hours, they get dozens of messages from people who were like, Mats was my best friend. Turns out, he had this very vibrant life within World of Warcraft and like this huge community of friends.
37:30 Speaker 01 Yeah.
37:30 Kaelyn Moore? And so, the documentary tells the story of Mats's life through what his character Ibelin was doing in the World of Warcraft world. And they actually get animators to like animate the scenes out. So you see like, this guy had love triangles and backstabbing friends and like all of this stuff, like all of the drama of every other person. It was just he couldn't do it in his physical body. He was doing it in his online world. And it's incredible. It is so incredible. I cried for 90 minutes, but I really recommend that to anyone who wants to watch that documentary.
38:04 Speaker 01 What was it called again?
38:05 Kaelyn Moore? The Remarkable Life of Ibelin.
38:07 Speaker 01 The Remarkable Life of Ibelin, okay.
38:09 Kaelyn Moore? And then, number one.
38:11 Speaker 01 Yeah, what is number one? You watched a lot.
38:14 Kaelyn Moore? Is really, really dark. But again, I picked this for number one because it opened my eyes to a lot of stuff I didn't know about. And I feel much more informed as a person now. But tell them you love me.
38:28 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah, that was, that one was crazy.
38:32 Kaelyn Moore? This is a Netflix documentary. It's about a woman who is a aide for a nonverbal autistic boy with cerebral palsy. And they form a relationship because of this newfound, not newfound, because of this type of communication that they're able to do together. And there are so many ethical questions that arise.
38:55 Speaker 01 It's like assisted speech effectively.
38:58 Kaelyn Moore? Yes, assisted speech. And so
39:02 Kaelyn Moore? the whole time you feel one way during half the documentary and then you totally flip in the other half. Like, it is very well done. It's Louis Theroux. So he's just also got a very dark curiosity.
39:13 Speaker 01 Louis Theroux famously of my coins don't jingle, jingle they fall.
39:17 Kaelyn Moore? I like the way you wiggle wiggle.
39:18 Speaker 01 Yeah.
39:19 Kaelyn Moore? For sure.
39:19 Speaker 01 Yeah.
39:19 Kaelyn Moore? Yeah, that's him. That's the guy. That's the guy that somehow made this incredibly insightful documentary, but.
39:25 Speaker 01 Yeah, makes a lot of insightful documentaries, but he is just really known for that now.
39:29 Kaelyn Moore? Did you have any favorite docs of the year?
39:32 Speaker 01 I, we watch a lot of this. We have some overlap in our documentaries, but I think my documentaries skew towards sports.
39:40 Kaelyn Moore? Hmm.
39:41 Speaker 01 You know?
39:41 Kaelyn Moore? Yeah, you did. We did watch the Michael Jordan.
39:43 Speaker 01 We did. Well, I rewatched it.
39:45 Kaelyn Moore? You rewatched it and I watched it for the first time. And honestly, incredible.
39:48 Speaker 01 Yeah, very, very good.
39:49 Kaelyn Moore? So good.
39:49 Speaker 01 Now, there are a lot of dark sports documentaries because.
39:52 Kaelyn Moore? Oh, the Vince McMahon one that came out this year.
39:54 Speaker 01 The Vince McMahon one, which we were watching recently about WWE.
39:57 Kaelyn Moore? Shout out Connecticut.
39:59 Speaker 01 Yeah, Connecticut's own.
40:00 Kaelyn Moore? Yeah.
40:01 Speaker 01 Right? Oh, yeah, I don't know.
40:02 Kaelyn Moore? Oh, yeah. Pride and joy of Connecticut. No.
40:06 Speaker 01 Uh, yeah, so I have
40:11 Speaker 01 not probably.
40:12 Kaelyn Moore? We can talk about horror movies.
40:13 Speaker 01 We can't talk about horror movies.
40:14 Kaelyn Moore? That was another one that I had a couple of recommendations. I also watched a lot of horror movies. I feel like I didn't do a great job keeping up with all of the recent releases.
40:24 Speaker 01 It felt like it wasn't a huge year for horror movies, just maybe because of like production in the strike last year. Like, it just felt like there wasn't like a ton of new stuff that came out.
40:33 Kaelyn Moore? There wasn't one. I mean, I haven't seen Nosferatu yet. I think Nosferatu is the one that everyone is talking about. But I, there wasn't one that everyone was freaking out over before that, except for maybe Long Legs.
40:46 Speaker 01 I think Long Legs is the one that definitely stuck with me the most.
40:50 Kaelyn Moore? Which Matt and I, yeah, well, yeah.
40:52 Speaker 01 Mostly because I'm traumatized from seeing it.
40:54 Kaelyn Moore? I told, Matt is not the biggest like depraved horror fan. Like you like a fun horror movie?
41:01 Speaker 01 I'm a thriller. I like thrillers. I like a fun horror. Sure. Yeah.
41:05 Kaelyn Moore? I told Matt that there was a new Nicolas Cage movie coming out.
41:10 Speaker 01 I was like, great. Love Nick Cage.
41:11 Kaelyn Moore? And I did not tell him anything else besides that.
41:14 Speaker 01 This will be a fun evening at the cinema.
41:17 Kaelyn Moore? Just one summer eve, we went to the cinema and I sat down and I was like, oh no, what have I done? Like right away when it starts, I was like, oh no, what have I done? Cause within the first three minutes, someone gets their head blown off. So.
41:30 Speaker 01 Yeah. I, I will say I, I do really like the directing and it was, I thought shot really well. And they had a pretty short shoot schedule. And so I thought it was pretty impressive what they were able to pull off technically. So when I'm sitting inside of, I'm trapped inside of a movie. That I am like, I did not remember signing up for this. I really just try and pay attention to like the technical stuff.
41:51 Kaelyn Moore? Yeah. The filmmaking.
41:52 Speaker 01 Yeah. The filmmaking. I'm like, oh, that's interesting. This is shot on, cause they actually shot part of that on film. And then part of it, the most of it, I think is digital. Uh, on the new Aerie.
42:04 Kaelyn Moore? What did you think about Long Legs? Cause I did not put that on the list of my favorites of the year, but I do, there's things about it. I can appreciate.
42:11 Speaker 01 I think tonally it's fantastic. I think from a story standpoint, it gets a little confusing in the third act.
42:17 Kaelyn Moore? It's a little muddy. I would say if the movie was like the first 20 minutes, the whole time, I would have loved it.
42:24 Speaker 01 Yeah. Yeah.
42:24 Kaelyn Moore? If we spent more time like investigating the people, the families that were dying, like I thought that would have been great, but instead.
42:31 Speaker 01 On and off, I mean, definitely very impressive.
42:34 Kaelyn Moore? It was worth it for the let me in now and it can be nice song.
42:37 Speaker 01 Yeah. Terrifying.
42:39 Kaelyn Moore? Make me go now.
42:42 Speaker 01 Yeah, maybe we'll just turn this into a musical performance.
42:44 Kaelyn Moore? And I'll have to come back. Oh, I loved it so much. Uh, okay.
42:50 Speaker 01 So what was on your list? If long legs was not on your list, what was on?
42:52 Kaelyn Moore? Okay, the best ones that I loved the most this year were the substance.
43:00 Speaker 01 Yeah, the substance was really, really well done.
43:03 Kaelyn Moore? Just a fun romp the whole time.
43:07 Speaker 01 That's one way to describe it. It is. That is for anyone looking for a fun romp. Maybe I think, I think I would not go see the substance.
43:15 Kaelyn Moore? Bridesmaids, you know, the fun romp.
43:17 Speaker 01 Yeah, the fun romp bridesmaids, just like the fun romp.
43:20 Kaelyn Moore? Bridesmaids, if you had severe food poisoning and body horror. Yeah, it was.
43:27 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah. The substance is like, it's, it's more difficult watch, I would say.
43:32 Kaelyn Moore? Yes, it is. Um, not really a fun romp.
43:35 Speaker 01 But stylistically, like really cool style, like it's shot really in really interesting ways.
43:41 Kaelyn Moore? You're like laughing and gagging and I like that in a film. And it also just felt like something different. I tend to like movies that just go for something different.
43:50 Speaker 01 I agree. I agree. So I'm definitely a big fan of that.
43:53 Kaelyn Moore? Which is why number one on my list, after thinking about it a lot and rewatching it, is Late Night with the Devil.
44:04 Speaker 01 Right. And that was Anna Kendrick star and produce, right?
44:08 Kaelyn Moore? No. What are you thinking of? Oh, you're thinking of Woman of the Hour, which is also.
44:12 Speaker 01 Woman of the Hour.
44:13 Kaelyn Moore? Also, uh, yeah, also a game show.
44:16 Speaker 01 Yeah, I'm sorry. I got the game show. That's a real world, true crime serial killer base.
44:23 Kaelyn Moore? I was like, you know, the game show horror movie? And you're like, yes.
44:25 Speaker 01 Yes, I do.
44:26 Kaelyn Moore? Can you believe there were two this year? But, uh, no, Woman of the Hour is also on the list. I loved that one about Rodney Alcala, the serial killer, also very much told from the perspective of the woman.
44:37 Speaker 01 Yeah.
44:38 Kaelyn Moore? Not necessarily him.
44:39 Speaker 01 Amazing what happens when women produce things.
44:41 Kaelyn Moore? Late Night with the Devil was, um. David Das Malshin, Das Malshin. And he plays a late night host and they're running out of money. They're like, probably gonna get canceled after this. And so for Halloween.
44:55 Speaker 01 Let's bring on the devil.
44:56 Kaelyn Moore? He's like, let's bring on.
44:58 Speaker 01 This is the same thing that happened with Australia with the shark. You just don't, they're like, let's bring on a shark and it'll save the company.
45:04 Kaelyn Moore? Yeah, right. They're like, I mean, we could fix the budget, look at the budget. We could, you know, like just retool some like of our content.
45:14 Speaker 01 Better popcorn. No.
45:16 Kaelyn Moore? What if we got a shark?
45:17 Speaker 01 Yeah.
45:18 Kaelyn Moore? And we just put it in a tank.
45:19 Speaker 01 Devil.
45:20 Kaelyn Moore? And we had children pay three dollars to look at it.
45:22 Speaker 01 Yeah.
45:23 Kaelyn Moore? What if we brought the devil onto TV?
45:25 Speaker 01 This is what happens when you just try to shock people.
45:27 Kaelyn Moore? It doesn't go well, but it's very entertaining.
45:30 Speaker 01 It is.
45:30 Kaelyn Moore? For the viewers. And so, yeah, that was, that was also on my list. And then I had two honorable mentions of movies that didn't come out this year. They're both, um, they were both recommended to me by, uh, the Talking Scared podcast. When I was on the Talking Scared podcast, Neil told me about Horror in the High Desert and Rec. Rec is a Spanish film. Horror in the High Desert is like a COVID, like depths of COVID movie. They somehow shot this.
45:56 Speaker 01 Found footage.
45:57 Kaelyn Moore? Both are found footage.
45:58 Speaker 01 Yeah.
45:59 Kaelyn Moore? Both are pretty freaky. So I enjoyed those.
46:05 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's great.
46:07 Kaelyn Moore? What are you most excited about for 2025 for Heart Size Pounding?
46:10 Speaker 01 I think I'm most excited about.
46:16 Speaker 01 Hmm. That's a good question. You go first. What are you, what are you most excited about?
46:20 Kaelyn Moore? I was gonna make a joke of something like, I'm gonna kiss a ghost or something. Like, I do think I am gonna contact more ghosts through either investigations or just like romping around and like just doing that for the show.
46:35 Speaker 01 Okay.
46:35 Kaelyn Moore? Um, but I, for 2025, I'm excited to work with more shows that I like. I really want to do more collabs. And I, I really want to.
46:47 Kaelyn Moore? Like get very invested and maybe do one story over a couple of episodes and really entrench myself into a story. And so maybe playing with that a little bit.
46:56 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think what I'm, I'm most excited about is some of the kind of playing with formats and also playing with extra episodes, bonus episodes essentially for everyone. Right now, we have a monthly bonus episode for Patreon subscribers and Apple subscribers.
47:09 Kaelyn Moore? Yeah.
47:10 Speaker 01 But we're going to be probably in February, if we can get it all done by then, add a kind of fifth monthly episode for everyone as well.
47:19 Kaelyn Moore? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
47:20 Speaker 01 So that's, I think, kind of, right. So that's going to be a little different format, but I think it's going to be a fun thing to play with. So that's what I'm most excited about. It's just like continuing to evolve the show.
47:32 Kaelyn Moore? Yeah, definitely.
47:33 Speaker 01 And then actually, we just filmed something a week ago.
47:38 Kaelyn Moore? Yeah.
47:38 Speaker 01 A couple of weeks ago. So that's really what I'm most excited about. We, we can't talk about that yet.
47:43 Kaelyn Moore? I'm excited for that to come out. Something filmed for you guys to watch and enjoy. Very excited. Incredible. Great year. Good job, champ. We did it.
47:53 Speaker 01 We did it.
47:53 Kaelyn Moore? And 2025 is going to be even better. I'm so excited.
47:56 Speaker 01 Well, they did it. Thank you.
47:57 Kaelyn Moore? You guys did it. Yeah, you're the, the reason we exist. So truly, thank you, guys. Good job, champ. And we will see you, I mean, next week, 2025, but like, we're back to our regular programming, starting next week, January 1st.
48:10 Speaker 01 Happy New Year.
48:11 Kaelyn Moore? Happy New Year and enjoy the time with your families, guys. All right. Catch you later. Bye.
48:16 Speaker 01 Bye.
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