Episode 128 - Cryptids (From the Last Decade)
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The Hallow (2015), The Ritual (2017), and Antlers (2021) Cryptids occupy a couple of different categories in modern life. One of them is fun, if a bit kitschy and silly: think concrete bigfoot statues sitting in whimsical gardens or funny little Mothman plaques hanging on the wall. But another is truly terrifying, buried down deep below the surface of our culture and our geography, a place where most people refuse to even touch the soil, much less dig. On this episode, we are going to dig deeply into those terrifying cryptid myths and uncover some wonderful horror films. Because in the last...
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Episode 127 - Shock Theater
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Believe it or not, there was a time when instant access to hundreds of horror movies didn't exist. Scary thought, huh? Before the late 1950s, unless you caught a movie in the theater, you probably weren't going to see it again, especially when it came to the classic monster films like Dracula and Frankenstein. But in October 1957, Universal released 52 of its horror films to television in what became known as the Shock Theater package. To help promote the broadcasts, television stations were encouraged to create "horror hosts" to introduce the films. Simply put, it exploded, and helped...
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Episode 126: Twice Told Tales - The Toolbox Murders
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The Toolbox Murders (1978) and Toolbox Murders (2004) In this Twice Told Tales episode, we examine a film and its "remake," though few pairs could be more different. Some would argue that the 2004 film is a remake in name only. Even so, in addition to the name, the two share enough connections, both on screen and behind the scenes, to make for an interesting comparison. On one side is an unflinching exploitation film; on the other, a more modern story infused with supernatural elements—or is it? Both films are unmistakably products of their respective eras, reflecting the cultural anxieties,...
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Episode 125: Modern Supernatural Horror Films
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Rigor Mortis (2013), When Evil Lurks (2023), and Vicious (2025) Pretty much from the very beginning of horror cinema—or cinema in general—supernatural horror has been part of the storytelling tradition. Granted, many of those early films were adaptations of famous works of literature dealing with ghosts, vampires, and other unworldly creatures, but more than a century later, the supernatural remains a huge gateway for creative filmmakers to walk through in order to create something interesting, and sometimes something genuinely new. Many modern supernatural horror films deal with grief and...
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Episode 124 - The Fly Trilogy
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The Fly (1958), Return of the Fly (1959), and Curse of the Fly (1965) Among the many films in which deviant mad scientists pay the price for meddling with forces beyond human understanding, The Fly stands apart. Released in 1958, it presents a scientist whose intentions are genuinely noble: someone striving to create something that could benefit humanity. Unfortunately, an unforeseen accident turns his dream into a nightmare, and tragedy soon follows. While the film ultimately becomes a monster story, it offers far more than a typical 1950s creature feature. And, of course, when a film...
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Episode 123 - Jean Rollin
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The Shiver of the Vampire (1972), Lips of Blood (1975), and The Living Dead Girl (1982) The films created by director Jean Rollin are unlike anything else in the history of cinema. If you make your way into his incredible filmic world, you will be entranced by its beauty, cinematic landscapes, and unique horrors. And the more you venture down this path, the more you'll start to pick up on repeating themes and motifs. Like Rollin, liminality, memory and nostalgia, families, surrealism and expressionism, might become your obsessions- they were certainly his. If it is carefully...
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Episode 122 - Dario Argento's Three Mothers Trilogy
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Suspiria (1977), Inferno (1980), and Mother of Tears (2007) There are very few horror fans out there who don’t know the work of Dario Argento, especially the giallo films he’s most famous for. While he only occasionally ventured into supernatural horror, whenever he did, he approached it with the same unmistakable style that defines all of his work. After helping define the giallo genre with Deep Red, Argento shifted gears and gave us Suspiria, a film that presented violence through a blinding explosion of color and an intense soundtrack that pounds through the speakers. It looked unlike...
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Episode 121 - Made for TV Horror Part 5: Dan Curtis
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The Night Stalker (1972), Dracula (1973), and Trilogy of Terror (1975) Horror fans from the 1970s may not have known the name Dan Curtis, but they certainly knew his work. From his early gothic soap opera Dark Shadows, where one of the main characters just happened to be a vampire, to the countless adaptations of classic novels, such as Dracula, Frankenstein, and Jekyll and Hyde, to even more throughout the ’70s. Curtis continued to give TV viewing audiences plenty of nightmares during that time, blending classic monsters with new and unique ones and delivering all of them to the...
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Episode 120 - Michele Soavi
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StageFright (1987), The Church (1989), and Dellamorte Dellamore (1994) Most horror fans are at least familiar with the Italian horror tradition, even if they aren’t deeply immersed in it. Directors like Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci, Dario Argento, and Joe D'Amato helped define one of the most prolific and influential horror movements in cinema history, producing a remarkable run of classic films over more than three decades. By the mid-1990s, however, that wave had largely collapsed. Yet, in the final stretch of that “era of terror,” horror fans were given something special: four films from a...
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Episode 119 - Carlos Enrique Taboada
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Even the Wind is Afraid (1968), Darker Than Night (1975), and Poison for the Fairies (1986) Mexican Director Carlos Enrique Taboada may not be the best known name to American horror fans, but he has made some films which are considered classics of the Mexican horror world. Which is why we decided to tackle 3 of this films in this episode. These films are fascinating as they are modern stories but wrapped in a gothic blanket. This episode is a little different for us, as we didn’t pick films that we necessarily loved. In fact, many of these films were first time watches for us. When on...
info_outlineThere have been many horror writers that have been important to the genre, but few have had the outsized impact of the one and only Chas. Balun. Whether it was his work in Fangoria, Gorezone, or his own magazine Deep Red, even if you didn’t see his name at the head of the article, you knew it was him within a few sentences, by either by the tone of the writing, or maybe the films he was covering. Chas’ style was humorous and more than a little confrontational, but he was always waving the flag in support of movies that he felt were important and hadn’t received enough attention. Sure, they tended to be on the gory side, but for Chas. it wasn't just about the gore.
Not entirely, anyway.
While the three of us knew his work and the impact it had on us personally, for this very special episode, we felt we needed to talk with other folks who were just as impacted by him, and also knew him personally. In the second half of the show, you'll hear from John Szpunar, author of Xeroxferox: The Wild World of the Horror Film Fanzine and Blood Sucking Freak: The Life and Films of the Incredible Joel M. Reed; Art Ettinger, editor at Ultra Violent magazine; and finally Shawn Lewis, creator of Rotten Cotten and Eibon Press. They all share their own stories of Chas, and we all discuss the profound the impact Chas. had on us and on the horror genre in general. Don’t miss this one!
Films mentioned in this episode:
Abomination (1988), Bad Taste (1987), The Beyond (1981), Beyond the Darkness (1979), Blood Sucking Freaks (1976), Blue Velvet (1986), Braindead (1992), Bug (1975), Cannibal Holocaust (1980), City of the Walking Dead (1980), Dellamorte Dellamore (1994), The Exorcist (1973), Friday the 13th (1980), Guinea Pig 2: The Flower of Flesh and Blood (1985), Hell of the Living Dead (1980), Last House on Dead End Street (1973), Last House on the Left (1972), Mad Ron’s Prevues from Hell (1987), The Nest (1987), Night of the Demon (1980), The Omen (1976), Pieces (1982), Splatterfest Exhumed (2024), Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), Tombs of the Blind Dead (1972), Zoltan: Hound of Dracula (1977), Zombie (1979)