322: 28 Days Later, with Maverick Hanze
The Good Friends of Jackson Elias
We’re back and we’re raging. While this virus plays a part, we’re more angry about the sequels to 28 Days Later. The first follow-up, in particular, is enough to make you chew someone’s face off. Happily, the original film still has as much bite as ever. Now if only we could convince it to let go of our leg. Main Topic: 28 Days Later Following last episode’s look at , we’re delving into a classic of the genre. Sure, the folks behind 28 Days Later have said that it’s not a zombie film, but we’re ignoring that. This has all the hallmarks of a zombie...
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321: Zombies, with Maverick Haenze
The Good Friends of Jackson Elias
We’re back and we’re hungry for brains. Sure, that whole that whole thing about zombies eating brains was made up by Dan O’Bannon in 1985, but that doesn’t make them any less tasty. And just because we’re chowing down on some grey matter doesn’t mean that we’re keen on any of that other new-fangled nonsense. Zombies shouldn’t run around or hold conversations, and they definitely shouldn’t be love interests. Shambling and moaning was good enough for those who came before us, and it’s good enough for us. Main Topic: Zombies Given how prevalent zombies are in horror media and...
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320: The Broadsword, with Andy Goodman
The Good Friends of Jackson Elias
We’re back and we’re checking the vents. They’re long overdue a service, but that doesn’t mean they should be talking about eating people’s kidneys. Maybe we could dismiss it as a load of hot air, but they don’t even provide that most days. We would ask the building supervisor to sort them out, but he’s either been eaten by the vents or tumbled through the alien portal in the basement. That portal is a safety hazard, and if it did swallow him that’s his own fault for not slapping some Polyfilla in there sooner. The cosmic nightmares of living at the Broadsword Hotel are bad...
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319: Roll Your Own Mythos, with Andy Goodman
The Good Friends of Jackson Elias
We’re back and we’re hunting for the biggest cigarette paper known to man. Well, ideally known to the gods too. If we’re going to fit an entire pantheon inside, this thing needs to be truly cyclopean, and maybe even non-Euclidean. An extra dimension or two wouldn’t hurt either. And we haven’t even started working out how to light up the damn thing! Main Topic: Roll Your Own Mythos The Cthulhu Mythos didn’t really start out as a cohesive entity. It has become increasingly codified by generations of fans, starting with August Derleth, but this can be an impediment to creativity....
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318: Metafiction and Horror, with Eleanor Hingley
The Good Friends of Jackson Elias
We’re back and we’re discussing metafiction and horror. More importantly, we’re getting the title of the episode in the first paragraph for SEO purposes. Main Topic: Metafiction and Horror Metafiction turns up in every genre from literary fiction to SF, breaking fourth walls, playing with storytelling conventions, and embedding fictional narratives within fictional narratives. Our focus here, however, is on the connection between metafiction and horror, whether this is self-aware slasher films or horror novelists who write about horror novelists. We look at various definitions of...
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317: Small Town Horror, with Eleanor Hingley
The Good Friends of Jackson Elias
We’re back and we’re keeping to ourselves. You really can’t be too careful. The outside world is full of dangerous ideas and strange people. Some of them don’t even play Call of Cthulhu. Sure, they might find our ways odd too, especially if they hear the singing in our early episodes. Still, the real small town horror is always other people. Main Topic: Small Town Horror This is a local episode for local people. We explore small town settings and why they work so well for horror. Isolated, insular communities are a mainstay of horror, usually populated by sinister locals who shun...
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316: Art and the Cthulhu Mythos, with Kailas Elmer
The Good Friends of Jackson Elias
We’re back and we’re pushing boundaries. Good taste has never come easily to us, but it’s downright impossible when talking about art that might inspire Call of Cthulhu games. From performance artists who mutilate themselves in inventive ways to photographers who raid the local morgue looking for models, it’s hard for horror writers like us to make this stuff any nastier. But still we try. Main Topic: Art and the Cthulhu Mythos This episode is the conclusion of our two-part look into the relationship between Lovecraft and art. , we looked at the artistic influences that...
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315: Lovecraft and Art, with Kailas Elmer
The Good Friends of Jackson Elias
We’re back and we’re mulling over bas-reliefs again. Once you start looking into the relationship between Lovecraft and art, the damn things are everywhere. We would say that there’s no relief from them, but that would be beneath us. Main Topic: Lovecraft and Art This episode is the first of a two-part look into the relationship between Lovecraft and art, and how this shaped the Cthulhu Mythos and Call of Cthulhu. Next episode, we’ll be flipping things around and looking for inspiration from the world of art, but here we’re examining the influence it had on Lovecraft’s life...
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314: Analogue Horror, with Holly Buteau
The Good Friends of Jackson Elias
We’re back and we’re twiddling the tracking knob. It’s supposed to help clear up the image on this old videocassette, but maybe that’s just missing the point. The static can be the most interesting part, filled with whispers, ghosts, and ancient secrets. Compared to such wonders, the film itself is a bit disappointing. Then again, analogue horror seems to be more of a vibe than a form of storytelling, so maybe we should just let the white noise wash over us. Main Topic: Analogue Horror This episode sees us explore analogue horror, trying to work out what exactly it is and how to bring...
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313: Horror in Space, with Holly Buteau
The Good Friends of Jackson Elias
We’re back and we’re and we’re answering the call of the void. Really, it’s about the scariest call you can receive, regardless of what Cthulhu may tell you. The yawning darkness of infinity shouldn’t be as tempting as it is. For all our talk about horror in space, maybe the real horror was inside us the whole time. Main Topic: Horror in Space This episode heads into the cold and the dark, exploring just what it is that makes space so scary. We talk about some of the real challenges and dangers posed by space travel and how they can amplify horror, then move on to inspirational...
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We’re back and we’re raging. While this virus plays a part, we’re more angry about the sequels to 28 Days Later. The first follow-up, in particular, is enough to make you chew someone’s face off. Happily, the original film still has as much bite as ever. Now if only we could convince it to let go of our leg.
Main Topic: 28 Days Later
Following last episode’s look at zombies, we’re delving into a classic of the genre. Sure, the folks behind 28 Days Later have said that it’s not a zombie film, but we’re ignoring that. This has all the hallmarks of a zombie apocalypse, and the various films that have borrowed from it over the years since release haven’t been shy about using the ‘z’ word.
But what is it that made 28 Days Later such a strong entry in the zombie canon? How well has it stood up in the not-quite 28 years since its release? And, most importantly, what can we steal for our games?
Our Guest Host
We are delighted to welcome Maverick Haenze back to The Good Friends of Jackson Elias! Mav is a prolific actual play performer and scenario author. You can find them as the Head of Mythos Horror on The Old Ways podcast, as a regular cast member on Ain’t Slayed Nobody’s Bleeker Trails, and in many guest spots on other podcasts, including How We Roll. Under the name Rina Haenze, they wrote the Mythos slasher romp Saturday the 14th, the historical LGBTQ+ scenario Friends of Dorothy, and many others on the Miskatonic Repository. They also edited the fairy tale-inspired collection Cthulhu Once Upon a Time, which is now available on DriveThruRPG.
Links
Things we mention in this episode include:
- 28 Weeks Later (2007)
- 28 Years Later (2025)
- Trainspotting (1996)
- Intacto (2001)
- “Plaything” from Black Mirror
- “Time Enough at Last” from The Twilight Zone
- The Walking Dead
- Burlington
- Kelvedon Hatch
- Threads (1984)
- Domain by James Herbert
- Blake’s 7
- Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
- Wind-up radio
- Wake Up and Open Your Eyes by Clay McLeod Chapman
- The Stand by Stephen King
- Swan Song by Robert McCammon
- Supermarket Sweep
- Jessica Jones
- Cracker
- Return of the Living Dead (1985)
- Night of the Living Dead (1968)
- The Crazies (1973)
- Rabid (1977)
- The Fog by James Herbert
- ’48 by James Herbert
- The King in Yellow by Robert W Chambers
- The King in Yellow (2022)
- Roll Your Own Mythos
- “Saturday the 14th”
- “The Murder Shack” from The Blasphemous Tome issue 5.5
News
Matt at the Innsmouth Literary Festival
Matt will be attending the Innsmouth Literary Festival in Bedford on the 27th of September. If you do find him there, please respect our catch-and-release policy after getting him to sign your books.
The Blasphemous Tome issue 14
Unfortunately, ill health and other life pressures are still getting in the way of completing issue 14 of The Blasphemous Tome. Rather than keeping on pushing it back, we’re going to release a bumper issue of the Tome this December with two full Call of Cthulhu scenarios. One is a new modern scenario from Matt, and the other is Scott’s loose sequel to Blackwater Creek.
We will be honouring our pledge to send out print copies to everyone who was backing us at the $5 level or higher end of June, so don’t worry if you’ve dropped yours since then.
