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- [00:02]
Heidi Wong
Hi listeners, it's Heidi Wong. Real quick, before today's episode of Twisted
- [00:05]
Katie Ring
Tales, I wanted to tell you about
- [00:07]
Heidi Wong
another show from Crime House that I know you'll love.
- [00:09]
Katie Ring
America's Most Infamous Crimes. Hosted by Katie Ring. Each week, Katie takes on one of
- [00:14]
Heidi Wong
the most notorious criminal cases in American history.
- [00:18]
Katie Ring
Serial killers who terrorize cities, unsolved mysteries that keep detectives up at night, and investigations that change the way we think about justice. Listen to and follow America's most infamous crimes Tuesday through Thursday on Apple Podcasts,
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Heidi Wong
Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
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Crime House Announcer
This is crime house.
- [00:51]
Heidi Wong
I'm Heidi Wong and this is Twisted Tales. Every week I'll take you deep into humanity's darkest stories and how they influence some the world's biggest horror movies. Subscribe if you dare and share your own twisted tale below. Today I'm getting into some of the world's most disturbing cults, family curses and demonic spirits and how they all mix together in a truly chilling movie by horror mastermind Ari Aster. A cult that preys on generations of families. A family betrayed by their own bodies. Another torn apart by its tragic history. People willing to exploit the grief of others for their own gain with a terrifying demon to tie it all together. Today, stories pull from the world's most terrifying corners that led to the creation of the most iconic horror movies ever made. Welcome to Twisted Tales, a Crime House original. I'm Heidi Wong. Every week I'll take you deep into humanity's darkest stories and how they influence some of the world's biggest horror movies. If you've ever had a haunted moment or a twisted tale of your own, I want to hear about it. Drop it in the comments. The creepier the better and for early access and ad free listening, subscribe to our Crime House plus community on Apple Podcasts. Today I'm getting into some of the world's most disturbing cults, family curses and demonic spirits and how they all mix together in a truly chilling movie by horror mastermind Ari Aster.
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Katie Ring
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Heidi Wong
I wanted to give something to the fans that they didn't expect. The only thing left is to close
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Heidi Wong
Meet the Family International. Formerly known as the Children of God, this cult was founded in 1968 in Huntington Beach, California by a guy named David Berg. He started with preaching to hippies on the beach, mixing Christianity with new age ideas like free love and communal living. And people were all about it. The movement spread like wildfire. Before long, David Berg's beach ministry turned into a full blown international operation. By the mid-1970s, the Children of God had 10,000 members living in communes across six continents in places like California, London, Manila and Buenos Aires. David called himself a prophet, a modern day Moses who could lead young people to spiritual enlightenment. He even gave himself the name Moses David or Mo for short. He made it all sound pretty good. But it wasn't. Because David didn't just want followers, he wanted complete control over their bodies, their minds, their children, their entire lives. And he got it. David communicated with his followers through nearly 3,000 letters he called MO letters. These weren't just spiritual teachings. They were detailed instructions on how to live every aspect of life. The letters started out relatively tame, but over time, they became increasingly disturbing. In 1972, Berg declared himself God's prophet for the modern world. Not a prophet, the prophet, the only one who could interpret God's will. And his directives involved a lot of sex. David introduced something he called flirty fishing, where female members were encouraged to use sex to recruit new members and donors. Yeah, it's as bad as it sounds, and that's just the start of it. Children born into the family were raised in communal homes around the world. They didn't go to regular schools. They didn't have contact with the outside world. Their entire universe was the cult. And a lot of them were subjected to systematic physical and sexual abuse. Trigger warning. The rest of this story does have mentions of pedophilia and sa so if that makes you uncomfortable, then please send. Skip forward a few minutes. He published shocking material suggesting that children could and should be sexual beings. One particularly horrifying publication called the Story of Davidito documented the sexualization of his wife's young son. Former members described growing up in an environment where abuse was normalized, where flirty fishing meant that children watched their mothers being pressured into sex with strangers, where questioning anything could result in punishment or isolation. A British court case found that the group engaged in systematic physical and sexual abuse of children, resulting in lasting trauma for survivors. And this trauma lasted for generations. Kids who were born into the family didn't choose this life. Their parents didn't even really choose it. Many of them were born into it too. Raised by original members who joined as hippies in the 60s and 70s, the cult controlled every aspect of their lives. Like where they lived, what they believed, who they talked to, what they could read, even who they could marry. And when people tried to leave, there were consequences. They were shunned, emotionally manipulated and threatened. The family tried to keep their activities under wraps. They lived in isolated communes, controlled information and cut themselves off from the outside world. But eventually, cracks started to show. Former members escaped and started talking. Parents of recruited children wouldn't stay quiet. The press started asking questions. And in the 1980s and 90s, as the abuse allegations mounted, government agencies in multiple countries raided the Family's communes. Investigations uncovered disturbing evidence against them. But the cult was sophisticated. They cleaned up their act just enough, changed their messaging and rebranded themselves. They evolved to survive. Then in 2005, something shocking happened. Ricky Rodriguez, the boy from the Story of Davidito, made a video detailing the abuse he suffered. Then he murdered a former high ranking member named Angela Smith before taking his own life. This murder suicide brought the Family back into the spotlight. More survivors came forward. The stories were horrifying. Today, the Family International still exists, though it's rebranded and much smaller than at its peak. But the damage is done. Former members are still processing the trauma decades later. So you can see how this could inspire a horror movie. A charismatic leader who claims divine authority. Devoted followers who give up everything. Children raised to serve the group's purpose, and generations of people whose lives were stolen from them, whose futures were decided before they were even born. If you're trapped in this cycle, you can feel like you're cursed, like it runs in your family. And sometimes that curse is actually in your DNA. The Galvans were the picture perfect American family. Don and Mimi Galvin lived in Colorado springs in the 1960s. Dawn was a decorated veteran who taught political science at the Air Force Academy and ran the falconry program. Meanwhile, Mimi was cultured, elegant, involved in the local opera scene. They had 12 kids. That's right, 12. 10 boys and two girls born between 1945 and 1965. From the outside, everything looked great. The family went skiing, hiking, went to the ballet and opera. They seemed like the American dream. But between the late 1960s and early 1980s, that dream crumbled when six of the Galvin boys were diagnosed with schizophrenia. Let that sink in. Six sons, all schizophrenic in one family. Donald Jr. The oldest, was the first to show symptoms when he hit his late teens. He'd always seemed perfect. Football star, wrestler, dated the general's daughter at the Air Force Academy. Just an overall golden child. But Donald knew something was wrong. Even as a teenager, he felt a barrier between himself and other people. He couldn't connect with them, couldn't feel things the way that he thought he should. And as he got older, things got much, much worse. He started having delusions, paranoia. He became convinced that people were conspiring against him. His behavior became erratic, even violent sometimes. His parents were devastated, but they told themselves it was a phase. Surely Donald would snap out of it. He didn't. Then it happened to James, then Brian, then Joseph, Matthew and Peter. One by one, as each boy reached his late teens or early 20s, the disease took hold and the family was trapped in a cycle of hospitalization, medication and violence. Because schizophrenia doesn't just affect the person who has it, it affects everyone around them. The Galvans home became a nightmare. The sick brothers would have psychotic episodes. They'd become violent, break things, terrorize their younger siblings, and it had a tragic effect on everyone in their orbit. Jim, the second eldest, became violent towards his wife. When he became an adult, he also sexually abused his youngest sister, Lindsey. He died from a medication overdose in 2001. Brian shot and killed his wife before turning the gun on himself. The Galvans, two daughters, Lindsay and Margaret, grew up in a house defined by chaos. They felt neglected, endangered, and terrified that they might be next. In interviews, Lindsay had described sleeping in her mother's room, possibly as protection from her brothers. She described a childhood where you could never relax, never feel safe. Imagine being a little girl in that house. Your older brothers, the ones who are supposed to protect you, are unpredictable and sometimes dangerous. And your parents are so consumed with managing the sick children that you feel invisible. And in the back of your mind, you're wondering, when will it happen to me? The family story was chronicled in a book called Hidden Valley Road. The book reveals the full extent of the family's suffering, but it also tells another story, one of hope. Because of the sheer number of cases in one family, researchers were able to study schizophrenia in ways they never could before. At the time, schizophrenia wasn't considered to be genetic. It was usually chalked up to bad mothering. Even in the 1980s, as we know now, that is obviously not true, and Mimi Galvin was not a bad moment. But for years, she'd been blamed by doctors who subscribed to the idea that cold, domineering mothers cause schizophrenia in their children. But when she met a geneticist named Dr. Lynn DeLisi, a different explanation came to light. She believed the problem wasn't in the Galvans parenting. It was in their genetics. Not only that, but she offered hope that future generations might be spared from the condition. For decades, Dr. DeLisi and other scientists studied the Galvin family's DNA. But the technology to fully decode it wasn't there yet. They were waiting for the science to catch up to the mystery in those blood samples. Finally, in 2016, more than 30 years later, scientists found a mutation in the Galvan brothers DNA. This discovery helped researchers understand how schizophrenia functions in the brain and specifically, how it affects brain development even before birth. The research continues today. Blood samples from the Galvin brothers have been shared with research institutions around the world and are being used in hundreds of studies. One researcher used the family's contribution to make a groundbreaking discovery about choline, a nutritional supplement that might protect a developing fetus from mental illness and brain disorders. The FDA now recommends it for all pregnant women, so there is something positive to take from this story. But for the Galvans themselves, the curse was real. And for those six brothers, it was a life sentence. Today, only two of the six affected brothers are still alive. Matthew and Donald. They both live in assisted living facilities, still managing their illness with medication and care. Their sisters have set up the Galvin Family Trust to help provide for Matthew and Donald's care. Because while the world has benefited from their family's tragedy, the the brothers themselves received nothing. They lost their future, their potential and their lives, all because of a genetic lottery that they never had a chance to win. But they're not the only family that has felt cursed.
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Heidi Wong
Ernest Hemingway is one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. He lived a life of adventure. He was a war correspondent, a big game hunter and a deep sea fisherman. But behind the tough guy Persona, Hemingway battled depression his entire life and trigger warning for suicidal ideation. On July 2, 1961, he took his own life at his home in Idaho. It was tragic, especially because suicide ran deep in the Hemingway family. In 1928, Hemingway's dad met the same fate with a gun, and two of Hemingway's siblings ended their own lives as well. Hemingway's granddaughter Margot died from a drug overdose on July 1, 1996, almost exactly 35 years after his death. Margot's sister Marielle has spoken openly about The Hemingway curse at the heart of all this tragedy. In a 2013 documentary called Running From Crazy, Marielle described growing up in the shadow of this legacy. She said, quote, I grew up watching a family that was completely amazing and creative, but also destructive and self medicating. All of them, they were addicts. Marielle also believes that her father sexually abused her sisters and that the family never talked about her grandfather's suicide when she was growing up. They just pretended that it was an accident. This culture of silence, addiction and trauma ripple through the generations. It's the kind of inherited pain that feels inescapable, like you're doomed for just being born into this family. But whether it's the Galvans or the Hemingways, the pattern is the same. Same family suffering becomes a legacy. Children born into pain that they didn't choose and can't escape. It's a curse that has nothing to do with demons and everything to do with the very real horrors of genetics, trauma, and mental illness. But when it comes to horror movies, sometimes you have to add some ghostly spirits into the mix. And in our next story, some real life sisters use the supernatural for their own advantage. In the 1800s, spiritualism was huge because there were a lot of spirits to call on. People were dying all the time. Child mortality rates were through the roof. Life expectancy was short. Grief was everywhere. So when the sisters Margaretta and Catherine Fox claimed that they could communicate with the dead through mysterious knocking sounds, people were desperate to believe them. By the 1860s, seances were a regular part of Victorian life. Mediums claimed they could contact your dead loved ones for a price, of course. England's Queen Victoria herself hired mediums after her husband died in 1861. She held seances at her castle for years, hoping to hear from him. Even the Queen of England was vulnerable in her grief, and mediums knew it. They used tricks like taking table wrapping, where the table would shake. Supposedly moved by spirits. They employed fake spirit photography. Some even pretended to materialize ectoplasm, a ghostly substance that would appear during seances. Most of it was fraud. In fact, 40 years after starting the whole movement, Margaretta Fox confessed that she and her sister had been faking it the entire time. They made the rapping sounds by cracking their fingers and toes. But by then, spiritualism was an entire industry, and it wasn't going away. Fast forward to today. The scams have evolved, but the target is the people who are grieving. According to the FBI, bereavement scams are a major problem, and these scammers Target grieving families in all kinds of ways. Some pose as funeral homes, demanding additional payment. Others pretend to be psychics or spiritual advisors, draining money from grieving people by promising to ease their loss. And these scams work because grief makes people vulnerable. When you're desperate to hear from someone you've lost, you'll pay almost anything for that connection, even if on some level, you know it might not be real. The psychic services industry in the United states makes over $2 billion a year. Not all of it is fraud. Some people find genuine comfort in these services, even if they know they're not literally talking to the dead. But the line between comfort and exploitation is thin, and there are plenty of people willing to cross it. So far, we have manipulative cults, dark family histories, and manipulative spiritual scammers. Three terrifying ingredients for the ultimate horror movie. But for Ari Aster, that wasn't quite enough. He needed to add a real demon to the mix, and his name is Paimon. He appears in a 17th century text called the Lesser Key of Solomon. This book lists 72 demons that King Solomon supposedly summoned and bound. It gives detailed instructions on how to call each demon and what powers they can grant you. Paimon is the ninth spirit in the book. He is described as one of the kings of hell, commanding 200 legions of demons. The book depicts him as a man sitting on a camel, wearing a crown. He's preceded by spirits playing loud music, trumpets, cymbals, all kinds of instruments. He has a hoarse voice and roars when he first appears. And he refuses to speak clearly until the summoner forces him to. But once you get him talking, Paimon can teach you any art or science. He knows all the secrets of the earth, wind and water. He can reveal hidden treasures and answer any question you ask. Sounds useful, right? But there's just one catch. According to the book, Paimon is, quote, very obedient to Lucifer. So, yeah, not exactly trustworthy. And this book wasn't Paimon's first appearance. Some experts even suggest that Paimon might have originally been a spirit from Middle Eastern mythology. So his origins go back even further than the 1600s. People have been scared of this entity for a very long time, making him the ultimate antagonist for the movie that put Ari Aster on the map. Hereditary.
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- [23:02]
Heidi Wong
hi listeners, it's Heidi Wong.
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Katie Ring
I wanted to take a brief moment
- [23:05]
Heidi Wong
to tell you about another show from Crime House that I know you'll love. America's Most Infamous Crimes.
- [23:10]
Katie Ring
Hosted by Katy Ring. Each week Katie takes on a notorious crime time, whether unfolding now or etched into American history, revealing not just what
- [23:19]
Heidi Wong
happened, but how it forever changed our society.
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Katie Ring
Serial killers who terrorize cities, unsolved mysteries that keep detectives up at night, and investigations that change the way we think about justice.
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Heidi Wong
Each case unfolds across multiple episodes released
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Katie Ring
every Tuesday through Thursday.
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Heidi Wong
From the first sign that something was wrong to the moment the truth came out or didn't. These are the stories behind the headlines.
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Katie Ring
Listen to and follow America's Most Infamous Crimes Tuesday through Thursday on Apple Podcasts,
- [23:49]
Heidi Wong
Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. If you've seen Hereditary, then you know this movie doesn't mess around. It's been called one of the scariest films in recent years, and honestly, that is not hype. The film opens with a woman named Annie Graham at her mom's funeral, but Annie's not exactly devastated. Her mother Ellen was. Well, she was something else. Secretive, manipulative. Annie even admits she's not sure if she should feel sad. Annie has a husband, Steve, and two kids, a son, 16 year old Peter, and a daughter, 13 year old Charlie. Peter's your typical teenager, Charlie, though Charlie is different. She's strange, quiet like cuts off birds heads and makes creepy little figures different. And she was especially close to Grandma Ellen, a bond that continues even after Ellen's death. After the funeral, strange things start happening. Then comes that scene. Peter gets dragged into taking Charlie to a party. He gets high and while he's out of it, Charlie eats a cake with nuts that she's severely allergic to. She goes into anaphylactic shock and Peter panics. He throws her in the car and speeds towards the hospital with Charlie gasping for air. Out the window, Peter swerves to avoid roadkill and hits a telephone pole. The impact is instant and horrifying. I'm not going to describe it in detail, but if you know, you know. It's one of the most shocking moments you'll ever see in a movie. Peter drives home in silence. The next morning his mother finds Charlie's Body in the car. After that, the nightmare spirals. Annie drowns in grief. Peter is consumed by guilt. Steve tries to keep the family together. At a grief support group, Annie meets Joan, a kind older woman who's also lost a child. Joan teaches her to perform a seance so she can reconnect with Charlie. Despite. Despite her skepticism, Annie's desperate enough to try. And it works. Glasses move, voices whisper. Seems helpful, right? Nope, because Joan isn't who she says she is. She's part of a cult that Annie's mom Ellen belonged to, and they've been planning something for Annie's family for a very long time. The nightmare escalates when Annie discovers her mother's secret room filled with uncle all kinds of occult items. The house becomes a prison, and the climax is pure chaos. Steve gets burned alive. Annie becomes possessed and hunts Peter. And eventually Peter jumps from a window and breaks his neck. Then in the treehouse out back, we see the truth. Ellen's cult has crowned Peter as their new king. Charlie's spirit is in his body. Except it's not Charlie. It's Paimon, the demon that they've been after all along. The cult bows. Charlie was never Charlie. She was just a vessel for the demon. Until they could move Paimon into the male heir they needed, the Graham family never stood a chance. When Ari Aster was pitching hereditary, he described it as a family tragedy that curdles into a nightmare. That feeling that your family is doomed and you're trapped in a pattern that you can't escape. Escape. That's what makes hereditary resonate and what makes a lot of the stories that I cover today so terrifying. Most of us haven't dealt with demonic possession, but a lot of us know what it's like to feel cursed by our families, to inherit trauma, to watch mental illness ripple through generations. That's the real horror of hereditary. It's not just a movie about a demon. It's a movie about the very real ways find families can be trapped. By cults that span generations, by genetic curses that we can't escape, by people who exploit our grief for their own purposes. The supernatural stuff is just the framework. The real horror is how much of it is true. The Family International really did trap children in a cult for decades. The Galvin family really did have six sons destroyed by schizophrenia. The Hemingway family really has been haunted by suicide for four, four generations. And grief merchants really do prey on bereaved families every single day. These are the monsters that inspired hereditary. And unlike Paimon, they're not going anywhere. Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of Twisted, a Crime House original. I'd love to hear from you. What did you think of today's stories? Have you seen Hereditary? Did it mess you up as much as it did to me? Leave a comment or review wherever you're tuning in, and be sure to follow Twisted Tales so we can keep building this community together. I'll be back next week with another unbelievable true story. Until then, stay curious and remember, there's no reason to fear the dark unless you try to hide from it.
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