Loremen Podcast - The Devil Monkey Of Danville with Miles Benson

Episode Date: October 10, 2023

Cheeky little minisode with film maker Miles Benson and a little treat about devilish simians from across the pond. Here's the link to Miles' project... https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/dream-clean-a-short-film-about-urban-legends#/

Psst, it's an extra bonus, little bit of bonus stuff. It's just me, James Shakeshaft here, but I've got a little sort of special guest for us here. It's, well, welcome to the bonus show, Miles Benson of PowerSource Studios. Hello, Miles. Hello, thank you. Thanks for having me on. I so appreciate this. No worries. No worries. What's the story? Why are you here? How have you gotten on to a whole bonus episode? That's a really good question. I learned about you guys probably about a year ago when I was researching a short film that I wanted to make about urban legends. And you guys were the first faces that popped up you know right there and i

was like were we on the back seat it turned out and that's what the gas station guy was warning you about was us on your back seat yeah that's what it was oh so you're so you're making a film about urban legends interesting yeah it's uh so it's it's called dream clean uh it's a horror comedy short film uh and the goal of it is to, you know, make this really good short film that also acts as a proof of concept for a feature film to help, you know,

sell the idea to investors. So, yeah. Is there a way that people can have a little look at what's going on? Yeah, that's great. Yeah. Thanks for mentioning that.

We have a crowdfunding campaign that is, we, you know, trying to get as much love for it as we possibly can we've been trying to build an audience you know i hope you appreciate the five people that will be listening to this i'm one of them one of the five so you know so for other people and i obviously also occasionally will do a quality pass so yeah there's three, there's three people and welcome. And to be honest, a lot of them admit to being asleep. So, oh well, oh well.

But it's nice to hear from you. So yeah, where can people find out about this? Is there an address on the internet? Yes, on their interwebs for sure. It's igg.me slash at slash dreamcleanfilm, all one word. And you can also find us on,

you know, basically every single social media channel, except for Twitter, at dreamcleanfilm, all one word. And that's for all the social media stuff. But it's... I do think with the all one word thing,

if you really wanted to torture someone you would give them an email address which the end of it would be the words all one word anyway that's my crowdfunder i'm just gonna set that up right now and it is gonna say all one word all one word do you have any ins on shark tank just just torturing your audience it's no wonder why you've got five listeners yeah yeah yeah uh yeah so i just to kind of bring that back to a little bit of what it is it's uh so it's it's about these cleaning women who kind of uh reluctantly get tasked with having to stop creatures of folklore from rewriting history uh when uh a doorway to the realm of myth is opened in a house they clean for so it's uh it's loosely inspired by my my mom

and my aunts who own a cleaning business if anybody's inclined to hear a little bit more about it they can go to the indiegogo page it's all listed on there or yeah the whole idea of it is that i wanted there to be i've always wanted to see like slasher films all team up like when freddy versus jason came out even though that movie is awful i thought it was amazing because you got to see these two characters team up with each other and i thought why couldn't we do that with like bigfoot and the loch ness monster and so i kind of thought that would be great you know um so you know we don't have the budget for the loch ness monster but yeah i've spoken to their agent a few times uh very angry

then you gotta go underwater it's then you're and they do swear they do swear can you tell us about the cryptids that do make the cut in deep clean the less wary ones i'm guessing sure yeah well our our two flagship uh characters that we're going for is uh is bigfoot and uh we've got a great makeup artist she's she's working diligently on you know making a bigfoot that's going to look you know as terrifying as better than harry and the henderson's you know um wowzers uh and then the other one that we're doing is uh the headless horseman as well he's yeah i mean that's like is that easier for the makeup person or way more difficult because on the one hand you don't have to do any eyeliner that's true right exactly so yeah you're from america right? Mm-hmm. Yep.

It's Massachusetts, am I correct in thinking? You got it pretty much right. I'm really nailing it. It's almost like we haven't emailed already. And is that Boston then? Is that where you're from? Yeah, so I live about an hour outside of Boston in a town called Milford. But I've lived in and out of know at various different times in my life um yeah what are the sort of urban legends that we've got from around that area you know it's massachusetts is weird like new england in general uh has all these different there's a new england oh there's a new england did you hear about it it's like new it's

like new coke oh no one likes it yeah we're actually trying to get back to old england uh england classic yeah england classic i have a i have a story of uh something that happened to me but and it ties into probably massachusetts's most that's a very weird thing to say massachusetts's i'm not even going to try because i'm pretty sure i couldn't it ties into a local uh probably the most popular urban myth of uh of massachusetts at least that's what usually pops up in terms of cryptids for sure so what's that then so i wouldn't i was probably about like 10 years old there was across the street from my grandmother's house there was this condo development where they were building all these houses and this is a really basic question what's a what's a condo is it what is a condominium i've guessed

in my head number of times is it an apartment pretty much so it's like a flat would a condominium ever be separate or is it always attached to other condominia i'm guessing that's the plural this one oh so maybe it's not a condominium because it was detached. So I think it was just houses. I think they were building houses. Oh, come on now. You've just sold me an American dream there and now it's just houses.

Go on then. Well, but then at the same time, if it's in a complex. Is it like a sheltered accommodation? Yes. It is. Separate houses. Except they all look exactly the same.

So I guess we would call that an estate. But an estate in England can range from an estate where like a lord would live. And then there's like a housing estate. When you say lord, what would that be? Like landed gentry. Like a lord or lady. okay all right i guess it's like it's it's one up from a knight i think they would have not in the olden times they would have had knights who did their stuff for them see i'm never just just picturing these very brave knights

living in these very tiny condo complexes and That's the thing. The word estate can mean, to be honest, it can mean a type of car. You can get an estate car, which just means long. So it's a limo. No, it's just got a big boot. It's like a, what's that wood paneled car? Oh, a station wagon? A station wagon. Yes.

Which to be fair, is a confusing set of words. It is. Yes. For what is just a longer car. I mean, to be fair, estate a confusing set of words. It is. Yes. For what is just a longer car. I mean, to be fair, estate is very confusing to me too. Yeah, because it means everything. It turns out it means most things in England, an estate. So anyway, sorry, I derailed you massively.

You're across from a building site. Yes. And so as kids, we would go inside these building sites and just play around hang out you know and not a good idea that is not that is not an endorsement i wouldn't recommend this to your your listeners but this was the early 90s so i think oh health and safety was a dream so i i left one of these houses and my friends were still inside play playing with rusty nails or something like that um hopefully it wasn't rusty because they were just being built. But I go outside and I turn the corner and I come face to face with this creature.

And it looked just like a monkey. But it was strange because it had these long, elongated fingers with these little claws at the end of the fingertips. And it had glowing eyes. What? Yeah. But it didn't have a tail. But it had like kind of, I couldn't really tell because it was moving too fast.

Right. The thing is, James, one of the things I need to tell you about myself is as much as I don't want to disillusion anybody in the audience. I'm not someone who typically believes in the paranormal or the supernatural. So having said that, I do believe what happened to me this day. And this is the only weird cryptid like thing that's ever happened to me. Um,

that I just cannot explain. So this is some sort of ape. Ape is the one without a tail, isn't it? Monkey usually has a tail. I couldn't tell if it had a tail. It almost looked like it could have had a nub, but I didn't know if it had wrapped its tail.

Yeah. You don't know. I'm imagining you'd be distracted by the big claws. It, it kind of like bounced around for a little bit, I think just from being spooked from seeing me. And then it just scurried up this, this house that was being developed and this condo and got to the roof.

And that was that was the last I ever saw of it. However, the reason why I'm bringing this up is I wanted to talk about as I was, you know, because I knew I was coming on the show and I know we were going to be talking about urban legends and I had to represent my my state and, you know, my country and everything like that. And, you know, I knew that I could talk about like the typical ones, you know, like UFO sightings or ghosts or something. But there was one that captured my imagination because it was so closely related to what happened to me. And that was the devil monkey from Danville, New Hampshire.

The devil monkey from Danville. There's a New Hampshire? Dan the devil monkey. What? No. The devil monkey. The devil monkey of Danville right okay so this was back in uh august 21st of uh 20 uh 2001 and uh the fire chief of danville david kimball he

uh had this creature had jumped out into the road in front of his truck and then it jumped into the woods. And so, uh, Kimball was stunned by what he saw. And, uh, he saw what was looked to be like a large monkey, uh, you know, just hopping across the road. And, uh, he had, uh, he said in the local newspaper, uh, that's nothing that's native to here. That was his quote, uh, which is just small town news if I ever heard it. So I think the most charming part about this, this, the next part of the story that's native to here that was this quote uh which is just small town news if i ever heard it so yeah i think the most charming part about this this the next part of the story that i wanted to talk about was uh that it even mentions this in the you know the newspaper that he's that he he talked to to get a sort of quote kimball went to the town librarian to determine what type of monkey he saw i'm just i had this like very visual you know picture in my head about

what the fire chief was doing did he talk to the librarian about this monkey that i saw and i just picture him bringing out all of these comically large books about monkeys to a table and spreading them out like a detective trying to determine what he saw that day you know yeah well he had determined uh that the the monkey that he had saw was a monkey called the humboldt's woolly monkey i think is what it was called oh yeah and so humboldt's or the humble the humble yeah monkey And, you know, so that's what and, you know, if you go and look at anybody who's, you know, if you're driving, please don't look this up. But if you're at home, please look up a picture of this monkey, because this when I saw a photo of this monkey that, you know, after doing some research about what we were going to talk about today, I had determined like that was, that looked dangerously close to the monkey that I saw 30 some odd years ago. Really? Yeah. How far is Danville from your Nans?

What's interesting about that is that it's, it's about a, it's, it's far. So it's about an hour away from my grandmother's house but but an hour away by monkey or by car or by monkey car uh by monkey car really okay yeah because it could have been thumbing a lift that's the thing about a monkey that's what separates us the apes from the other animals is our opposable thumbs give us the ability to hitchhike that's how they're going to take over and play another the apes i heard yeah yeah yeah just like thumbs up liking everything and we'll think oh they didn't seem like a threat and then no they they're gonna i don't know what they're gonna do with them thumbs and i would not like to guess yeah maybe they shouldn't have opposable you're gonna oppose these opposable thumbs they certainly are opposable so yeah so i mean people had seen this monkey you know at various different times you know

over the course of august and september of you know 2001 with a little bindle on a stick one of the one of the the best stories from this that i heard though is that you know because there's all these stories about like oh you know i heard screeching from the woods or it bounced in front of my car or you know something like that but there's this uh there was a that's a very poetic way of saying i hit it with a car it bounced in front of my car and then just sort of led there and yeah it's horrible that's horrible people have seen it here and there heard it uh but you know again in the slow news in uh in danville there was this local boy uh who told his mom that the peanut butter cookies that he left in his treehouse had disappeared. And so this sparked, you know, this peanut butter cookie thing apparently was the thing that like ignited the flame.

Like we got to get to the bottom of this. Yeah. This peanut butter cookie thing. This fine enough to be causing noise pollution and freaking out fire department chiefs, but they can't take our cookies. A peanut butter cookie is worth fighting for. A PBC? Yeah. Yeah.

What's endlessly fascinating about this, though, is that immediately following the part in this newspaper article about the peanut butter cookies is uh they use the word mobilized oh god you'll come to like i want you to and you and your listeners to just imagine and remember the the movie jaws and what they all did to try to take down the shark and capture it and, you know, get vengeance on the little the little boy that died. I this there's a lot of similarities, except the monkey did. Well, the little boy is some cookies. Oh, yeah, right. That's right. And was the mayor like, we've got to keep this treehouse open.

It's the Fourth of July weekend. I'm going to put loads of more cookies in here. And then, yeah, of july weekend comes along no cookies you ever seen a chocolate chip and a peanut butter cookie black mcdonald's eyes mcdonald's chocolate chip so the town really did like yeah they came out in droves apparently uh according to them and ran uh danville residents had uh these are the efforts that they had taken to uh to try to get this monkey right and it was uh strung up bananas and oranges to lure the monkey into the open clever it's like a fruity wind chime

it's not even musical no but they love it there were hunters with uh trank darts stood by at the ready and uh and in in the infinite wisdom of the danville residents a local dj even dressed up like a gorilla to entice them oh right okay in order to be like hey we're fine we're cool look there's a monkey that plays music for us where you know you should join us and then, did the DJ get shot by accident with the tranq dart at any point? Did they accidentally capture the DJ and didn't believe that it was a person? And they're trapped.

No. This made national media attention, which was pretty crazy. And I guess the animal control officer was scheduled to appear on the Today Show, actually. media attention, which was pretty crazy. And I guess the animal control officer was scheduled to appear on the Today Show, actually. And but then they realized it was ridiculous. I mean, kind of and compared to, I guess, in well, I guess September 11th was happened immediately that same that same weekend

that they were scheduled to show up. And then, of course, you know, I don't think they're going to choose the monkey over, you know, the awful atrocities. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I can see how they might get bumped for that. Oh, wow. This monkey is at large.

So they did say 11 years later, Oh, wow. This monkey is at large. So they did say 11 years later, there was one more account from Michelle and Dino saw a strange animal at her parents' backyard. And she says that it was the devil monkey of Danville. Nice one, Michelle. Maybe it was the DJ. Maybe it was the DJ, yeah. So wait a minute, when were you viewing this monkey? You were saying the early 90s?

Yes. So, and this brings me to my second point, and actually how it ties into the larger cryptid from Massachusetts, is that the devil monkey was from 2001. My monkey was from like early 90s. And then now something that is about like a 20 minute drive from where i live is a town called dover uh and dover is a another small town and the the big cryptid from massachusetts that i think everybody pretty much knows is uh the dover demon the dover demon yeah i can't say

i've ever heard of it i don't know why it's so popular because it only had a small stint of, of encounters in 1977, but did have a radio show. I think, I think that's what his name was. Yeah. Are you asking, by the way,

are you like, are you asking all these questions? Cause you need a gorilla costume and just trying to find out. I'm just saying if i do need to invest in one yeah so the dover demon the way that they describe this creature is uh it's gray and white with large glowing eyes unnaturally long tendril like fingers you know uh walks on two feet but prefers to scuttle on all fours you know things like that and that's about 20 minutes from where i saw my monk so i'm thinking that if there's any truth to the dover deep it's got to be what i saw unless it's just a monkey i don't know a monkey that was into building sites it It was an enthusiast.

Yeah. Into condos. Trying to also understand what condos were. Yes. Did feel an affinity. Or it could be, yeah, the evolution of Demon. Yes. From like the scuttly one to a sort of mid-size one.

And then you've got your one that's, you know, managing to hold down a successful mobile disco business that is fantastic that's a fantastic set of stories thank you very much miles and yeah what was the um address people can check out your stuff then please yeah thank you um yeah if you go again if you could just go to indiegogo um and type in dream clean i'm sure you'll find it, but I'll give the address just in case it's, um, I G G dot M E slash a T slash dream clean film, all one word. And now I'm a little weirded out by what you had said about your torturing people earlier about all one word.

That's not part of the address. They are just, there is just no gaps. Yes. No gaps. Yeah gaps yeah uh well yeah james thank you this was uh this was a lot of fun it was uh it was an honor to actually be a part of this and uh you know i've uh i've been listening to you guys for a little bit and strangely i used your your podcast as a inspiration try to get this thing going so uh if i can uh

you know return the favor in some way, I'd like to, uh, to do that. And I'm guessing there's a DJ role at the very least. Yeah. Wonderful. Thank you very much, Miles. Cheers. Thanks for coming along.