Scary Thoughts

H.P. Lovecraft’s work has been largely poorly adapted for film. So we were relatively excited for Richard Stanley’s 2019 take on Color Out of Space. He is a legit occult weirdo with a deep love of horror. And Nicolas Cage is basically our Vincent Price. The end result is, well, not all cosmically horrible. We’re joined by Jeremy Lassen (Sci-Fi/horror book sales/publishing veteran, Editor-in-Chief of Nightshade Books) for his second appearance on the show. We hit on Susan Sontag’s concept of camp, black metal theory, psychedelia in horror, what makes Cage great, Lovecraft’s racism, and the recent rise of witchcraft in popular culture.

Our friend Daniel Coffeen (Zero Books, Renegade University) returns to help us appraise Todd Phillips’ 2019 Joker. We survey the various controversies surrounding the film while discussing class, resentment (you can use the fancy critical theory/French pronunciation), alienation, and Joaquin Phoenix’s dancerly grace and peculiar improvisations. And we make time to celebrate Marc becoming a citizen of the USA.

When the ghostly yarn, A Christmas Carol, came out in 1843, it revived Christmas traditions all over the world. There have been countless versions of the story made since then, and some of them are quite ghoulish. But is it horror? Well, not really. However, it does involve the supernatural and it’s critical of the dreary machine of modern industry. So we take a crack at it in our usual manner. This episode features talk of free will, self-improvement, and general holiday cheer.

Elizabeth Gilbert’s 2006 memoir, Eat Pray Love, is thoroughly likeable. It also represents a certain kind of 21st century spiritual journey that remains popular in Oprah book club circles, but is viewed with suspicion in today’s privilege-obsessed culture. We talk about why we love this book, why it’s not premium mediocre, whether or not failing at a relationship means it’s a failure, and as always, way too much conversation about violence.

In 1994 The Crow unfurled its celluloid wings and took flight in the imaginations of teenage Goths everywhere. 25 years later, does it still hold up? For the people who love the remarkable comic and are still ride or die for the soundtrack, the answer is a resounding yes. But the film has not aged well. In this episode we cover James O’Barr’s personal story, we spend a lot of time talking dark 90s music, and we even have a brief visit from unofficial third co-host Monique to cover women and vengeance. Also, if this episode were an album, the B-side would be our somewhat long discussion of John Wick. Afterall, The Crow is basically John Wick with Juggalo makeup and a goth soundtrack.

2019’s Child’s Play reboot took some heat from die-hard fans, but it’s fairly successful as a Black Mirror episode. It replaces the supernatural with the technological, which allows it to address modern anxieties about connected devices and AI. We talk about Shoshana Zuboff’s book, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, how children play in the YouTube age, and how the 80s action figure boom might have influenced media.

Predator (1987) is a big movie. The actors are big. The guns are big. The campiness is big. Marc had never seen it; Chad is obsessed with it. And that friends, is a recipe for hilarity. We discuss 80s action tropes, masculinity, hockey violence, and whether or not Arnold Schwarzennegger is the greatest human to have ever lived.

This is the first episode of our newest podcast, Self Help for Nihilists. It’s a departure from our focus on horror, but fans of the main show, especially those caught in soul-crushing existential despair, should enjoy it. We discuss the problems associated with a nihilist worldview, some of the philosophers that helped shape it, and make some suggestions about books that have helped us navigate this bleak an uncaring universe. Plus jokes!

In this episode, we finally take a look at Stranger Things 3. With some distance from our 4th of July weekend binging, we’ve found ourselves a lot more critical of the season. Even though we both enjoyed it on first viewing, we bristle like crusty old haters at our old frenemy: nostalgia. We also discuss the film classic Predator and whether or not young actors will be safe from Hollywood predators in the future.

Drag legend and horror director Peaches Christ (Joshua Grannell) joins us for Poltergeist (1982). We talk about the effectiveness of sweetness in horror, the controversy over who directed the film, the franchise’s curse, and what makes this PG flick an iconic horror movie. Peaches also gives us some insight into what it takes to create an over-the-top haunted house.

Jim Jarmusch’s meta zom-com, The Dead Don’t Die (2019), wasn’t exactly loved by genre fans. We discuss what we liked, what we didn’t, and why watching Game of Thrones and reading Harry Potter might not be the best way to spend your few remaining years on Earth. This episode is saltier than usual, perhaps caused by the ambient dread created by polar fracking.

Zombieland (2009) is one of the more successful zom-coms. It features a great cast and a lot of fun ideas. It’s not the most philosophical of films, but we do manage to get into what it means to live life by a set of rules. And more importantly, what our zombie apocalypse outfits would look like.

In this episode we cover all things Naked Lunch: the 1959 book by William S. Burroughs, the 1991 David Cronenberg film, and all the surrounding mythology. If you’re into drugs, writing and weirdness, this is the episode for you. We’re joined by self-described sophist, Dr. Daniel Coffeen. He’s a former professor of rhetoric at UC Berkeley and teacher of critical theory at the SF Art Institute. He’s authored Reading the Way of Things: Towards a New technology of Making Sense (Zero Books).

The 2019 documentary Hail Satan? by director Penny Lane is not a horror movie. It’s more of a political comedy. But the work of The Temple of Satan and its nefarious relation, The Church of Satan, are of interest to us, and hopefully to you. We cover the film itself, a bit of the conversation around the split with activist Jex Blackmore, and as always, performance art. If you don’t have opportunity to see this doc, you can easily follow the episode by watching a few videos about the Temple of Satan on YouTube.

For fans of supernatural comedies, 1984’s Ghostbusters is as big a presence as a giant Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. It has some of the best comedic acting ever recorded. It also has some interesting things to say about the role of government in paranormal small business development. We get into the libertarian slant of the film, whether or not Dr. Peter Venkman is a predator or a playboy, and we also cover a bit of the controversy surrounding the reboot.

Srđan Spasojević’s 2010 Serbian exploitation film joined the ranks of horror’s most controversial efforts the moment it came out. It’s not for everyone, or really anyone, but criticism of the film tends to be rather pedestrian and reactionary, even among so-called horror fans. We spend almost as much time talking about Maggie Nelson’s recent book, The Art of Cruelty; and Chris Burden’s art piece Shoot as we do the film, so if you aren’t into the ultra-graphic, you can still enjoy this episode.

Suspiria is a beloved classic no one really needed to remake, but if you have to do it, you may as well do it with some style. Lucca Guadagnino’s 2018 version is a bold vision that divided horror fans. Dance performer Monique Jenkinson (AKA Fauxnique) joins us again to discuss remakes, contemporary dance, fierce witches, Butoh (the Japanese Dance of Darkness), and other high-art strangeness.

The 2013 horror-meta-comedy This is the End is, on the surface, a great ensemble cast stoner film. But it also traffics in the kind of fart/dick/#nohomo/bro-humor the modern finger-wagging class disapproves of. In this episode, we explore the potential of a new masculinity, whether or not James Franco’s cronies are cinema’s zeitgeist, and what it means to love juvenile humor.

2003’s remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre isn’t often lauded for much beyond its presentation of Jessica Biel’s assets. So when Andrew Sheets (AKA Meredeath) mentioned it was their favorite horror film back on our Babadook episode, we were perplexed. Were we missing something? Are we now too old to understand what appeals to millenials? Is this simply a flaw in a friend’s otherwise impeccable horror taste? We ask these questions and more with Meredeath back as a guest to defend the barbaric tastes of the young.