The Spite House w/ Mark O Estes

In this episode of the **M3 Bearcast**, Malcolm Travers is joined by horror enthusiast and critic **Mark O. Estes** to dive deep into the chilling world of Johnny Compton’s celebrated novel, *The Spite House*.

What makes a house "haunted"? Is it the spirits of the dead, or the lingering energy of the living? Malcolm and Mark explore the southern gothic atmosphere of Compton's Texas-set thriller, which follows a father and his two daughters on the run. They’ve accepted a cryptic offer: stay in a "spite house" and document its paranormal activity for half a million dollars. But as they quickly discover, the rules of this haunting—and the nature of the "ghosts" within—break every traditional trope of the genre.

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* **The Anatomy of a Spite House:** The history of homes built out of pure defiance and how that negative energy manifests.
* **Beyond the Grave:** Why the entities in *The Spite House* are more disturbing than traditional ghosts.
* **The Science of Fear:** A look at how our environment, gut biomes, and even the history of diseases like tuberculosis shape our narratives of the supernatural.
* **The "Twist" (No Spoilers!):** How Johnny Compton pulls the rug out from under the reader by redefining what it means to be a "source" of energy.

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### **Recommended Listening**

If you enjoyed Mark’s insights on horror and the paranormal, be sure to subscribe to **Mark O. Estes'** podcast, **Midnight Social Distortion**, available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Transcript

 Copy of Ep 89 The Spite House

Copy of Ep 89 The Spite House

Speaker: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the M three Bear Cast. My name is Malcolm Travers Male Media Mind is a grassroots organization. Male Media Mind is a grassroots organization dedicated to uplifting and unifying our community through dialogue, insight, creativity, and knowledge. And on this podcast, I break down issues that are around communication, community, self-development, spirituality.

And mental health, and I go into more detail about topics that I bring up on my live streams on YouTube. In this episode, I'm actually discussing the book despite house.

In this episode I'm discussing with Mark O. Estes, the Spite House by Johnny Compton. It is a paranormal investigation story of a father and his two daughters who. Seem to be on the run and they find an ad to stay inside of a haunted house. And if they can document any paranormal activity, they'll be given half a million dollars.

And the book [00:01:00] is something that breaks all the expectations, sort of that I have. Of haunted house stories. For one, the hauntings of the people in the house are not necessarily those who have died, and the history of the house isn't what you might think of a normal haunted house, like a, like a murder mystery or something like that.

But the essence of what a haunting is is still there. And I wanted to talk to Mark about. Sort of the psychology of why haunted house stories resonate and have so many different iterations, and I think we got into it. I would highly recommend the book. And I hope you enjoy this conversation I have with Mark.

Here we go.

Malcolm: First episode of my podcast like three years ago, and we were talking about the Derek Chauvin verdict in the 

Mark: I do remember 

Malcolm: Derek Floyd murder. [00:02:00] Yeah. 

Mark: Yeah. Okay. 

Malcolm: It was interesting because I was going back through I lost the, the main male Medium Mind YouTube channel. And so I was going back to my old podcast and bringing them back over to your YouTube, the new one, Uhhuh.

And in the process, I know you hate a ai, but 

Mark: very much 

Malcolm: I am putting them all into a notebook on Google called Notebook lm. And it basically, I only got the first 16 episodes in there, but you can actually ask it questions and it's really disturbing, but also enlightening as to because there's a lot of material.

I have 88 episodes total. I don't have 'em all in there, but you can basically just ask it questions about yourself and your interest and, ask what sort of topics would Mark be interested in talking about that you are also [00:03:00] interested in talking about? And, I thought, one of the things it was talking about was just fear and the paranormal specifically dealing with how the paranormal relates to mental health and our beliefs in the supernatural.

And so, I've been getting into trying to read more, and I'll take suggestions from anyone. I, I don't make that to sound shady, but you give me suggestions. But your suggestions have been spot on. I haven't read a book that you suggested that has been bad, so. And I will put a book down if I'm not interested, but you suggested The Spite House at one point, so I read it.

I'm questioning as to whether I should have any sort of spoilers for people who wanna read the book, but 

Mark: Yes. No, no. Don't include spoilers. I want everybody to read their book. 

Malcolm: Yeah. But I guess the basic outline of the book is that it is a paranormal [00:04:00] investigation narrative. This father, Eric and his two daughters come to this cryptic house owned by this woman who basically runs this town, and they offered him a set amount of money.

I think it was like half a million dollars to stay in his house and write in a notebook. It's very odd because she wanted it to be written and not recorded. And one of the things I think. That struck me about it was that they had some basic tropes from paran paranormal activity type stories, but they definitely put a twist on it.

And to me, I thought the twist was like that the ghosts are not necessarily about people who have died, but it is still very much like ghosts. I don't even know what you would call it. Like the essence of a person that's trapped in this house. And it has very classic themes of hauntings, of [00:05:00] visions and sounds and an empty house and that sort of thing, but it doesn't necessarily follow the narrative that the, the sounds and things are coming from dead people.

Mark: Right,

Malcolm: and so it really got me to thinking about the, the, the premise of. Homes and dwellings and castles and mansions. And this is a, a recurring theme throughout history that houses retain some sort of essence of the people who live there. And oftentimes it's dead people, but honestly it doesn't even have to be the dead people.

I'll give you an example from my own actual life. So I had to walk to school in Chicago, and it was not a very good neighborhood. I lived on the south side. I only had to walk about six blocks to my bus stop. But many people get killed on this block. It's not the great place. And I can remember there being a very [00:06:00] prominent like murder happening in one of the houses on my way to school, and everyone just started calling it the murder house.

And it was on the news, like an entire family got killed. I think the father killed his wife and all his children and was up for murder, horrible, horrible story. But as kids, yeah, but as kids, we associated a certain amount of we need to avoid this house. Like you just don't go near the house. There's something wrong with the house, even though it's a person who did it, and I was just thinking, obviously we were children at the time. I was like seven or eight, so, no one else around me was more than 12. 

But I think those sorts of ideas continue with us into our adulthood.

We don't get rid of them. We add an extra layer of rationality on top of it. But I believe the feeling that the house is [00:07:00] tainted is. There whether you rationalize it away and move on with your life or whatever. But I feel like that feeling of that house being haunted or corrupted or something lives on even after, 30 something years when I would go to visit my dad and I'm a grown ass man.

I still looked at that house. Weird. Yeah. So what do you say about this idea how do you relate to narratives about hauntings and about essences, and maybe even specifically about this iteration in the Spite House? 

Mark: It depends on what the author is trying to get across. 'Cause I know that Hauntings was the first, before I became a big slasher type horror fan.

The haunted house was my bag. I remember being [00:08:00] obsessively investigating the am Deville horror when I first learned about it. Damn, that looks good. But I remember like reading all the books, like I read the am Amityville Horror when I had to have been probably still in high school maybe. 

Malcolm: Yeah.

Mark: And I remember finding out that there was not, 'cause you only heard about the Amityville Horror book. I did not know that there was like two sequels after that. So I was like, oh, this carried on after they left the house. And so that was my first leg of looking at, the aspect of, 'cause when it comes to Am DV Harvard, the only thing you get first and foremost is the image of the house.

But the way that the book and the books or anything like that, kind of like brought it into play was I, the second book was whatever, whatever, whatever was in the house was still following them [00:09:00] and haunting them. So that was my newest my newest, what I'm trying to say is that was another way of learning how hauntings can, tra, can travel, right?

And so I say all that to say that it gets, it, it all boils down to what the author's trying to say. Like sometimes the e the house can be energized by just negative energy, the house could be stagnant, like the energy inside the house. It might have a, the house might have a history, but then the negative energy that the inhabitants bring into the house could charge it up.

You know what I'm saying? 

Malcolm: I've 

Mark: been playing with the idea, with the story in my head where this cabin has a history. But the, I will say the completely paranormal, but depending on the energy that these people or the inhabitants bring, it's going to be what their experience is going to end up being, staying in that house or that cabin.

So with [00:10:00] the spite house, I feel that it, it had this energy inside the house that was, on a, what's the word I'm looking for? Threatening side. 

But it feels that anybody that comes in that house, it takes part of that essence, if not their, 'cause it's not like they, like you said, you didn't have to die inside the house to become like an inhabitant.

You could just end up being like a part of you. Can be taken away. It could be a big chunk of it, or it could be a enough to notice that it has touched, touched you. So,

Malcolm: yeah. Yeah, that was pretty disturbing question. 

Mark: Does it kind of answer your question by any chance? 

Malcolm: Yeah. In a little way. I, I wanted to ask you about, have you had any sort of encounters with, [00:11:00] haunted houses or, stories of haunted houses in real life that you've encountered?

Mark: Yes and no. But the thing of the matter is, is that you have, I've had, I've had experiences, but I've never knowingly walked into a haunted house and had an experience like that, but.

Malcolm: Just like renters of a house or something like that, 

Mark: especially being on UT campus. There was a lot of buildings that was haunted, like the dorm that was across the courtyard of my dorm was, has been written about in a lot of Tennessee lore hauntings and stuff like that.

So, phone your hall is supposed to be the woman whose name is after the name of the woman that the hall is named after, is supposed to haunt the dorm. It's a all yeah, girls dorm and I think it's still standing on campus. [00:12:00] However, I've had instances where like

I call 'em little seeds that would nest, like maybe a haunting or something like that. Let me give you an example. When I first moved into my dorm, first ever time. My roommate at the time was not there. He had stayed there the semester before I did. So I came in midyear and ended up being his roommate.

'cause he didn't have a roommate the first half of the year. So when I came into the room where the desk where at? There's a cork board that had on there in small red print. Tomorrow you will find me in a pool of blood. The reason why I'm setting this up right now, Malcolm, is because I remember I told you my roommate that was in he was already, I, I'm new to the room with what I'm trying to say.

He's been there a whole semester. 

Malcolm: Okay. 

Mark: So of course my mind goes to did this [00:13:00] motherfucker write this? 

What am what am I about to be introduced to? He comes in and he's giving this energy that I, he didn't write this, so I'm like, did you not notice that this was here? He looked at it, he said I didn't study that far apart down.

I'm like, so I'm like, no, I never noticed that, but it just a lot. They said that they, I did hear that a guy did try to take his life in that room. 

Malcolm: Mm. 

Mark: And also there was 

Malcolm: a 

Mark: guy, go ahead. 

Malcolm: No, yeah, no, keep going. 

Mark: No, I was saying there was a guy at the dorm not too far from there the previous semester who tried to hang himself from the dorm window.

Malcolm: Yeah. So 

Mark: it was a lot of weirdness going on the talk. And one night when I was taking a shower in the dorm, what you call the, when you had to share the bathroom with another dorm person, not. Not a common, not a common, like a, one, everybody use the same bathroom. It was only the two [00:14:00] people who had the dorm.

What I'm trying to say is, is that all them were gone. Okay. It was just me in there, and as I'm taking a shower, the shower curtain is literally wrapped around my body and some people was like, oh, the wind must have gusty or something like that. Yeah. I fought that, but nobody had come into the room.

Malcolm: Right. 

Mark: Come into the bathroom and there shouldn't have been any air blowing that hard for it to wrap the, the whole entire shower curtain around my body. It wasn't like I backed into it and it like, ga my arm or something like that. No. The whole thing just wrapped around me, me all of a sudden I had to tear myself out of it.

Yeah. That was the closest thing that I've had to 

Malcolm: Yeah. That's, that's freaky. The thing that I always come to when it comes to h is I don't, how do I put it? I think people underestimate the amount to which people hallucinate. 

Mark: Oh yeah. 

Malcolm: So I really do feel like when you say you're haunting, people will say if it's coming from yourself, from your own [00:15:00] psyche, that it's not real, quote unquote.

Mark: Right. 

Malcolm: But I'm like, an experience is real if you experience it. What are you talking about? It's, it's what it is. Who cares if the wind blew it around you and you know that, but it happened to you. It was an experience that you had. And I think we look for narratives to explain that.

Mark: Yeah. 

Malcolm: Occurrence. And I don't think that, how do I say it? I think that the, the, the haunting narrative has to be taken seriously simply because of how ubiquitous it is. Like people experience the presence of people in their homes. 

At times, 

Mark: yes. 

Malcolm: And they resonate over time because people can identify with it.

Like they, there's something about it that feels real.

Whether or not, like it explains the presence of some external force, or if [00:16:00] it is a pattern of narrative formation in within our own psyche. It's real. Like it happens. People are haunted. Yeah. People are haunted by the past and because they're, I think sometimes curious about what happened and we want an explanation for why things happen.

Like when I think about the, the murder house on my trip to the house, it's like, why did this man murder his whole family? 

It's just it doesn't make any fucking sense. We want explanation. Even if that explanation is itself is like crazier than the fact that he murdered his whole family.

Mark: Right. 

Malcolm: Like it doesn't make it any better that, let's say, some evil presence in that home spook, spoke to him and made him kill his family. It's fucking unsettling. 

Mark: Yeah. 

Malcolm: Right. 

Mark: Yeah. Because when you think, when you think about it, it's just, it goes back to the am Deville, haunting Ville horror, the, the, the whole def situation, the the, the, [00:17:00] the family that stayed in there where he killed the entire family for the Lux, then same situation, it's like what drove him to do that?

And so when he sat there and told them, 'cause he again set the seed, he sat there and told them, Hey I saw something, something came and spoke to me and I just did what I did. Then he kinda walked it back and forth throughout the entire years though. But I'm like, you set the seed. For whatever it was that, came about in terms of, that energy that you left behind and I 'cause the lus is knowing probably previously, probably not upfront, but knowing previously, I mean, not knowing, but I'm saying that after eventually finding out that yeah, the weird stuff that's going on is because somebody killed the entire family here.

It goes to what you're saying, like maybe certain things like are seeded in your mind and then your mind and the atmosphere around you just manifest whatever it is that you're, experiencing. 

Malcolm: Yeah. So [00:18:00] I think there is something to that. One of the things that I am exploring in reading and writing is the idea that we are more than just.

What's in our body. I, I'll give you one example. I just read this book called Everything is Tuberculosis and it's a history of the disease, tuberculosis. Even before that, we knew it was caused by bacteria as the consumption. 

And at one point people thought it was a genetically inherited disease and there was the idea of they thought that you needed to get fresh air, the Adirondack chairs, like the, the sunbathing Oh.

Came from the idea that they thought you needed to sit outside and get fresh air to help people who were dying of tuberculosis. And of course they didn't know what they were doing, but it's a lot. It's interesting. Tuberculosis as a disease informed a lot about the way we behave and stuff because it's over [00:19:00] time, the most deadly disease.

That humans have ever encountered. In fact, it's still the most deadly disease year after year. Millions of people die from it. I think 1.6 million people die from it every year still, even though there is a cure, which is fucking crazy.

Mark: It's crazy. 

Malcolm: Can imagine, like even before we had antibiotics, 'cause that's basically how it's treated.

People were dying from it. But I think the basic thing that tuberculosis kind of taught us was that our relationship to something that is unknown creates its own narratives, I guess in a way. It creates these sort of pathos and, and ethos around it. So in the case of tuberculosis, before it was a bacteria, before it was something that infected your body.

Consumption, which was the disease that people called it, they called it consumption because you would waste away, right? 

It took you about two years to die and you just lose weight. And you know that old narrative [00:20:00] trope where someone coughs and it, and there's blood on the rag. 

That's consumption, that's tuberculosis.

'cause it usually attacks your lungs. And just when you start coughing blood, you're in the final stages of death from consumption. So that's one of those things where people slowly or dying. What's interesting though is before it was bacteria and they thought it was genetic, they also linked tuberculosis and consumption to things like beauty and intelligence.

'cause a lot of people, a lot of famous writers, the, the Bronte sisters for instance. Died of consumption. A lot of famous, let's just say one out, one out of four people in Europe died of consumption. So it obviously also hit a lot of famous people. But there was this idea that, it was a disease of privilege in a sense.

They didn't even actually at the time, didn't even think that black people got tuberculosis or consumption at [00:21:00] the time when it was discovered to be a bacteria, it completely changed and it became a disease of the poor, and it's just a switch oh, like this isn't about something that's innate to you, it's something that infects you.

And then it's the same disease though. 

Mark: Yeah. 

Malcolm: And it's just funny how get that little bit of knowledge changes it completely, but also just the, the germ theory of disease also changed what it means to be a human being, so, you have almost as many bacteria cells in your body as cells that are you, if that makes any sense. So for every cell in your body that is marked, there's another cell that's a bacteria that is not marked. 

Mark: That's freaky. 

Malcolm: That's freaky, right? And what's even more freaky is that those bacteria interact with your body in a way that affect you.

Like they affect your mood, especially your gut bacteria, right? Depression and [00:22:00] anxiety are linked to your gut biome, and they not, they're not even you when you think about that. So now take that to a larger idea that something inside you that isn't you, affects your mood, your environment also affects your mood.

We found out that like most of our memory is based on where things are. That whole idea of feng shui or whatever 

Mark: right, 

Malcolm: is real. If your area feels cluttered in a way where you don't know where things are, your anxiety goes up. If you live in an environment where you know where everything is, your anxiety goes down.

That's not even talking about feng shui. It's just if you have an accurate mental map of your environment, you feel more comfortable, 

Mark: right? 

Malcolm: So think about that. That makes your environment part of you. If your environment affects the way you feel just as much as the bacteria in your stomach, that's not you, quote [00:23:00] unquote, not you, you.

So this barrier between us and the world is just a concept in our mind, 

Mark: right? 

Malcolm: We are the world, we are part of the universe. We are integrated into our environment, and that's where I get really philosophical about these haunted houses that yes. We understand that on some basic level, like we are a part of our environment.

We are the rooms that we're in, they're a part of us. We shape our rooms to meet our personalities, our personalities shape who we are, our, our rooms shape, our our feelings. And so I think that's where, on a really basic level, these ideas of hauntings come from. If someone lived in that house who was famous, that house becomes a landmark.

That house becomes,

Mark: a sale 

Malcolm: preserve Yeah. Becomes sacred. If you found out like one of your favorite authors lived in this house for 40 years, you would revere that house. 

Mark: Yeah. 

Malcolm: You would think if [00:24:00] this desk was owned by somebody, because it influenced them in some way.

It was a part of them. It was in their environment. It meant it, it was a part of them. In some real way. Not just like psychologically or spiritually. It just is, it just is fact. We don't understand completely just the way that people who had consumption didn't understand that it was a bacteria.

We don't fully understand the ways that our environment shape our personalities, but we know that it does. 

Mark: Yeah. So I believe that it's kind of like prevalent in despite house with Eric because the more he stayed in the house, the more he was affected by it. You know what I'm saying? And even though the girls we know one of the girls was a, was a huge battery sale.

But that's why they had to get her out the house because of the source of she was a, she was a source. So, but. [00:25:00] I feel like the, especially about the book, the book itself and the history of the term, the spite house or spite house. 

It's just something in the word spite that has like this energy.

Some people might look at it is a positive energy charge, but me, I look at it as a negative because it's, it was negative energy that causes somebody to be spiteful. You know what I'm saying? So 

Malcolm: yeah. Again, 

Mark: go ahead. 

Malcolm: I was thinking like negative and positive. Low vibrational, high vibrational, it's all contingent upon the circumstances, right?

Mark: So, 

Malcolm: I mean, I, we could talk about a little bit of the understanding of why this man built this house. He comes back from the war. And his land is sold to an orphanage. 

Mark: Right. 

Malcolm: And he builds his house outta spite almost to, because he feels like his land, his heritage has been stolen from him.

Mark: Right. 

Malcolm: And, that sort [00:26:00] of spite could be useful. And if you're being truly imposed upon, right? 

That's why I feel like Spike can be good, in the case of say, like someone who is in Minnesota right now. 

Mark: Yes. 

Malcolm: Dealing with ice, doing shit just despite ice officers is a positive thing.

Mark: That's I saying it depends on, because sometimes in a positive it, it, it probably comes from a sense of positivity. 

A positive outcome. But there's still a sort of energy in, it's kinda a weapon of sort. It depends. It's not really a weapon. It, it, it becomes a weapon of choice. And you can use that weapon against good.

You can use against evil to, depends on the, the bearer of the weapon is the one that it charges it. So whoever has the spite it, depending on what energy, what they plan on doing with it has the power. 

Malcolm: Yeah. I think spite to me gives the [00:27:00] idea that I'm gonna hurt you even if it hurts me. 

Mark: Hmm. 

Malcolm: Yeah.

Mark: Hmm. 

Malcolm: It's like I don't even care now. I don't even care if I hurt myself in hurting you, Rightm gonna make you suffer,

Mark: and I think that's the situ, especially with with how we know, and again, I implore everybody to go out and read The Spider House by Johnny Compton. He is is a black.

Novel. It is, it has gothic overtones and or southern gothic rather overtones and stuff. It does take place in Texas. So,

Malcolm: it definitely has its jaw droppers. Like I was saying, we didn't want to spoil too much in the book, but there's definitely a point at which I text you. I was like, 

Mark: yeah.

Malcolm: I was like, did he just say that? Did he just, what? 

Mark: When I tell y'all I love, and I was telling Malcolm this, I just love how the book itself unfolds. It's like when, when you think you know where it's [00:28:00] going, it pulls the rug of front of you or it pulls back another layer of this onion. And I'm not saying calling it the onion is a bad thing.

I'm just saying it pulls another layer away and it gets to the, the, the, it's, let's say the book is well seasoned, let's just say there's well seasoned, and when you get to a certain part. 'cause again, you think you know where this is going. And it's just and it's not like it's a big

chapter. It's more along the lines of if you, if you're really engrossed in the story 

The character says it, or when the exposition presents itself, as the, a new layer or a new secret, a new twist. You're kinda like, like Malcolm said holy shit. You know what I'm saying?

I cannot believe that they did that. Like I, I can't believe he did that because it gives you a different way of viewing the a haunting. And that's what I think the whole thing is. Because again, like I said, I looked at it as this is a different, take on the [00:29:00] haunted house and I'm glad to see that.

'cause there's been a lot of haunted house or haunted establishment books, harm nos have come out lately and some of them. I'm not gonna say some of 'em fall short, but if you can tell that the person they all the, the, the, the story rather is playing with that. Is the house actually haunted or is the person the driving force of a lot of the hauntings going on because they themselves have issues.

So, and that's what 

Malcolm: always interesting. That's kind of interesting. I mean, and that is a real basic feature of a lot of supernatural happenings. 'cause Yeah. I mean that is the basic thing that people think about when you hear a bump in the night. Is it me, is it something in my own head or is there something out there actually bumping,

so, that's interesting. It is. But that was mine.

Speaker: And that'll do it for this episode of the M three Bear Cast. Please give this podcast. Subscribe if you enjoyed [00:30:00] it. And consider becoming a patron at patreon.com/male MediaMind. I'm gonna link a.

Make sure to check out Marco Estess podcast, the Midnight Social Distortion. You can find it on Spotify and Apple Podcast and of course. I appreciate you listening to this episode of the M three Bear Cast, and I'll catch you in the next one piece.