Chillennial Horrors

In the final episode of our found footage mini series, Sarah and Jonathan revisit two of the best regarded sad horrors of the subgenre: Noroi: The Curse, and Lake Mungo. You'll never look at blurry VHS footage in the same way again. Also: send more ectoplasmic worms.

Music: Doors Of Skin by Complexi-Tales

Run, or walk briskly, away from the monsters in our latest episode as we look back at found footage zombie (or at least "infected") movies REC and George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead. Jump scares, foregrounded social commentary, and...it's probably tonsilitis, right?

Music: Doors Of Skin by Complexi-Tales

Happy Halloween! We get seasonal with an outsider double bill with werewolf coming of age movie Ginger Snaps and lonely monster-making horror May. A lot of big emotions, a lot of blood...do these teenage favourites stand up to the test of time? 

Music: Doors Of Skin by Complexi-Tales

It's alive! It's huge! It's... a new episode of Chillennial Horrors, and this time we're looking at found footage monster movies Cloverfield and Trollhunter.

Music: Doors Of Skin by Complexi-Tales

If your girlfriend tells you not to get a Ouija board, what do you not do? That's right, Paranormal Activity's Micah might be one of the worst boyfriends in horror history.

We have left the blood-soaked basements of the Splat Pack behind and we're heading into found footage territory with micro-budget found footage sensation Paranormal Activity. We talk about how Oren Peli created the blueprint for the subgenre's future and many Blumhouse horrors to come, the joys of a well-paced jump scare, and whether this era-defining chiller is still scary. 

Plus, we look at how Paranormal Activity 2 tried to deepen the mythology and lost its way with more cameras, that amazing jump scare in Paranormal Activity 3, and briefly run through the rest of the franchise's diminishing returns. Remember: it's not the house, it's you.

Music: Doors Of Skin by Complexi-Tales

It's a Chillennial Horrors double feature! We close out our Splat Pack series with the 00s horrors of Alexandre Aja and Greg McLean. Sarah and Jonathan brace themselves for the blood, the screaming, the mutant cannibals, the backpack killers and the killer croc of High Tension/Switchblade Romance (2003), The Hills Have Eyes (2006), Mirrors (2008), Wolf Creek (2005) and Rogue (2007).

Does High Tension's twist still work, if it ever did? Are we here for the gruelling nastiness of breakdown horrors? What is going on with Kiefer Sutherland's performance in Mirrors? Why does Wolf Creek feel like such a different beast to Hostel? And why is it so satisfying when people get chomped by apex predators in movies?

Join us for this splattery movie marathon as we ponder whether Alexandre Aja gets better with age, discuss if Greg McLean is stuck in Wolf Creek forever, look back at what we've learned revisiting the Splat Pack movies, and talk about whether our views on the "torture porn" label have changed at all. 

Music: Doors Of Skin by Complexi-Tales

Sarah and Jonathan light a flare and head into the darkness as they revisit the 00s films of British writer-director Neil Marshall: Dog Soldiers (2002), The Descent (2005) and Doomsday (2008).

With some serious trepidation, Sarah and Jonathan revisit former favourites Cabin Fever (2002) and Hostel (2005), plus Hostel Part II, to see how they stand up in the cold light of 2021. 

This episode, Cliff Barnes, head devil of horror podcast Devil Times Five, joins us for a chat that somehow ends up being mostly about Eli Roth's face. Who will be cancelled, and what will be left of them?

Music: Doors Of Skin by Complexi-Tales

Time for the big one: Saw! 

Jonathan, Sarah, and special guest Mike Muncer revisit the game-changing first movie in the Saw franchise... and then, inevitably, end up talking about all the others too. Which ones stand up? Which traps still confuse us? And how appropriate is the term "torture porn", anyway?

Music: Doors Of Skin by Complexi-Tales

Horror got nasty in the mid-2000s. We knew we wouldn't be able to fit everything we wanted to say about the torture porn (or "gorno") wave into one episode, so instead we'll be doing a whole series looking at the key directors and franchises that emerged during that period. 

First up? Rob Zombie. In this episode, we cover House of 1000 Corpses (2003), The Devil's Rejects (2005), and Halloween (2007), with help from writer and Rob Zombie expert CJ Lines.

Music: Doors Of Skin by Complexi-Tales