Director's Notes: 182 - It Sticks With You

Someone on Twitter asked me the other day if co-hosting Random Number Generator Horror Podcast No. 9 w/Cecil Baldwin has changed how I write for Night Vale. It's a good question, in that it's hard to answer but it makes me think. 

Until last summer when Cecil and I started that show, I could probably count on two hands the number of horror films I've watched in my life. I've always been horror movie-averse, even though I read a ton of Stephen King as a kid. And I kind of like scary things. And after about 35 episodes of our show, I'm actually pretty excited to watch horror films these days. Victory.

But that also means I've watched about 3 dozen horror films in as many weeks and even taken in a few more as extracurricular activity. Percentage-wise that's a huge part of my entertainment/arts intake. So naturally, it has influence how I write for other projects, such as Night Vale.

This episode, I think, unintentionally reflects the part of horror movies I find more intriguing and compelling and frightening: intellectual disconnect, or disorientation. I had fun describing what owls sound like, and then repeating the description of that sound using terms that don't at all capture what an owl sounds like. Or Cecil Palmer playing a cassette that he cannot hear which reveals repeated actions that he cannot remember. 

Lynchian horror, I guess, you can call this. And it's the type of horror that can easily lean toward comedy. Absurdity, like birdwatching, goes both ways.

But more than anything this episode is about fatherhood. (who is Esteban? when did Cecil and Carlos have a son? Great questions!) We've never really addressed Cecil's father on the show, and it's a story I'm interested in developing, but I don't just want to say "here's a dad we never mentioned." I'd rather explore what it means to love or miss or resent or forget your father. And what it means for a father to not be present at all. And honestly, in the case of Cecil's story, does that matter? 

The missing father trope is well-trod ground, so what makes this special? That's a lot to think about, and it's difficult to do with all the creaking shouts of all these owls. 

-Jeffrey Cranor
February 15, 2021