Clever Ghouls

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On this episode, the Clever Ghouls discuss Pan’s Labyrinth, the 2006  Dark Fantasy film written and directed by Guillermo Del Toro.  This movie takes place in 1944 Spain, which is torn apart by remnants of the Spanish Civil War and World War II. Caught between a war torn country and a dissolving family, our young protagonist enters a fantasy realm filled with danger, excitement, and escape.   Join us as we take a closer look at this film and talk about how we use fantasy to cope with trauma, the beauty of practical effects, and why this movie is one of the most striking dark fantasy/horror mashups.

This film is rated R for graphic violence and injuries. For more information and a full list of content warnings,  we invite you to visit DoesTheDogDie.com.

This episode has minisodes to accompany it, so definitely take some time to listen to those for even MORE in-depth content! 

• Dark Fantasy vs Horror: What’s the difference? | Minisode w/  Melissa
• Pan’s Labyrinth: A Psychological Analysis | Minisode w/ Maegan
• Mommy Dearest: Mothers, Motherhood & Maternal Portrayal in Horror | Minisode w/ Maegan
• Monsters are Good For Us: Grief & Mourning Through Horror w/ Maegan

The Clever Ghouls podcast, hosted by Maegan and Blair, is a show dedicated to watching, analyzing, and discussing the movies that make us think about them long after we’ve left the theater or turned off the TV. We bring quick wit and unique perspectives from backgrounds like art history, cinematography, psychology, analysis, public education, mysticism, mythos, and more to create a curated, inclusive conversation around the spooky movies we love. Tune in on your favorite podcast hosting platform to listen along, join the conversation, and chime in with your own observations!

Our intro and outro music was created for us by Josh Marshall. For more episodes and other spooky content, find us on your favorite social media platform through our handle: @CleverGhouls. Don’t forget to subscribe and share, and if you really like our content, please leave us a review. Or we’ll haunt you forever. Thanks for listening!

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In this minisode, join Maegan as she digs back into some psychological theories and concepts around fear. In particular our fear of death. Death is something that we all, sooner or later, have to face. We will all experience it. But how do we respond to it? Why are some of us more afraid than others? And what is it, exactly, that scares us about death?

The Clever Ghouls podcast, hosted by Maegan and Blair, is a show dedicated to watching, analyzing, and discussing the movies that make us think about them long after we’ve left the theater or turned off the TV. We bring quick wit and unique perspectives from backgrounds like art history, cinematography, psychology, analysis, public education, mysticism, mythos, and more to create a curated, inclusive conversation around the spooky movies we love. Tune in on your favorite podcast hosting platform to listen along, join the conversation, and chime in with your own observations!

Our intro and outro music was created for us by Josh Marshall. For more episodes and other spooky content, find us on your favorite social media platform through our handle: @CleverGhouls. Don’t forget to subscribe and share, and if you really like our content, please leave us a review. Or we’ll haunt you forever. Thanks for listening!

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Buckle up, Ghoulies, because we’re talking about your favorite costume designer who you didn’t know was your favorite: Colleen Atwood. Atwood has done costume design for a metric fuckton of movies and shows and I’ll bet that if I asked you what your favorite costume is, it would probably be an Atwood design. Born in 1948, Atwood’s career spans over four decades and over FIFTY films, as well as iconic musician's costumes, TV shows, and so much more.

The Clever Ghouls podcast, hosted by Maegan and Blair, is a show dedicated to watching, analyzing, and discussing the movies that make us think about them long after we’ve left the theater or turned off the TV. We bring quick wit and unique perspectives from backgrounds like art history, cinematography, psychology, analysis, public education, mysticism, mythos, and more to create a curated, inclusive conversation around the spooky movies we love. Tune in on your favorite podcast hosting platform to listen along, join the conversation, and chime in with your own observations!

Our intro and outro music was created for us by Josh Marshall. For more episodes and other spooky content, find us on your favorite social media platform through our handle: @CleverGhouls. Don’t forget to subscribe and share, and if you really like our content, please leave us a review. Or we’ll haunt you forever. Thanks for listening!

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In this minisode, join Maegan as she spends some time dissecting the gender imbalances in horror. We’re not only going to be tapping into our feminist rage in this minisode and looking at the misrepresentation of women in horror, we’re also going to be heavily digging into the stereotyping of men as well, acknowleding the entire lack of representation for gender non-conforming roles, and also discussing how horror is serving as the battering ram for breaking down gendered stereotyping and balancing the scales of representation.

References

• Monster Pains: Masochism, Menstruation, and Identification in the Horror Film
• The Others: Why Women Are Shut Out of Horror by Soraya Roberts
• How Horror Films Are Bringing More Gender Equality to Hollywood by Beth Younger 
• Geena Davis Institute on Gender In Media: New Study shows women will turn off a film or TV show if too stereotyped or lacking female characters.
• Google and the Geena Davis Institute: The women missing from the silver screen and the technology used to find them
• Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film - Updated Edition by Carol J. Clover
• Last Girl Standing: The Evolution of the Final Girl | Minisode w/ Maegan

The Clever Ghouls podcast, hosted by Maegan and Blair, is a show dedicated to watching, analyzing, and discussing the movies that make us think about them long after we’ve left the theater or turned off the TV. We bring quick wit and unique perspectives from backgrounds like art history, cinematography, psychology, analysis, public education, mysticism, mythos, and more to create a curated, inclusive conversation around the spooky movies we love. Tune in on your favorite podcast hosting platform to listen along, join the conversation, and chime in with your own observations!

Our intro and outro music was created for us by Josh Marshall. For more episodes and other spooky content, find us on your favorite social media platform through our handle: @CleverGhouls. Don’t forget to subscribe and share, and if you really like our content, please leave us a review. Or we’ll haunt you forever. Thanks for listening!

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On this episode of Clever Ghouls, join the Ghoulies as they discuss Zach Cregger’s 2022 film, Barbarian. The script started out after Cregger read Gavin de Becker's book "The Gift of Fear," which encourages women to trust their intuition when confronted by obviously dangerous men. Barbarian follows Tess who arrives at an Airbnb late at night only to discover there isn’t a key provided. She rings the bell in the hopes of finding some answers to being left out in the rain, when a man answers the door. After entering the house, and then making the decision to stay the night, Tess soon discovers her little home-to-rent is definitely not what it seems. This entire movie takes 500 different twists and turns, and it’s straight FUCKED.

Barbarian is an incredibly disturbing movie that takes a lot of twists and turns that aren’t explicitly laid out in the description or summary of the film. Please take a minute if you haven’t it yet, to head over to doesthedogdie.com to check out a full list of content warnings. This movie is rated R  for some strong violence and gore, disturbing material, language throughout and nudity. It also comes with a pretty extensive list of content warnings so, here we go…Discussions of sexual assault and men being the WORST about it, jump scares, kidnapping, stalking and forced entry into homes, inbreeding, lots of intense body gore included severed limbs and eye mutilation, heavy maternal and breastfeeding themes, captivity, child abuse, torture, guns, suicide, and a car crash.

Resources
Jubilee Video: Male Feminists Vs. Antifeminists

Oppressed People Can Be Oppressors Too

Saturn Devouring His Son by Francisco Goya

This episode also has a bunch of accompanying and related minisodes, so definitely also check those out to get even more content and dig even deeper:

• The Body Never Forgets: Epigenetics & Generational Trauma | Minisode w/  Maegan
• Mommy Dearest: Mothers, Motherhood & Maternal Portrayal in Horror | Minisode w/ Maegan
• Barbarian: An Ode to Practical Effects in Horror | Minisode w/  Blair
• Tilting the Scales with Rage: Gender Imbalance in Horror w/ Maegan 

This episode was organized and edited by Maegan.

The Clever Ghouls podcast, hosted by Maegan and Blair, is a show dedicated to watching, analyzing, and discussing the movies that make us think about them long after we’ve left the theater or turned off the TV. We bring quick wit and unique perspectives from backgrounds like art history, cinematography, psychology, analysis, public education, mysticism, mythos, and more to create a curated, inclusive conversation around the spooky movies we love. Tune in on your favorite podcast hosting platform to listen along, join the conversation, and chime in with your own observations!

Our intro and outro music was created for us by Josh Marshall. For more episodes and other spooky content, find us on your favorite social media platform through our handle: @CleverGhouls. Don’t forget to subscribe and share, and if you really like our content, please leave us a review. Or we’ll haunt you forever. Thanks for listening!

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Do you know what makes a good movie GOOD? Well, it’s a lot of things, actually: exceptional writing, world-class acting, stellar cinematography, a team of people who are experts in their fields all working together to make something shine on the silver screen. There are lots of venerated positions within the art of filmmaking, and even more tasks that seem to go unnoticed or unappreciated…and one of these in particular make some of our favorite movies timeless, exciting, and highly re-watchable. Join Blair as she tells us all about the history of special and practical effects and why they make our movies so special, particularly in our next full episode pick, Barbarian.

The Clever Ghouls podcast, hosted by Maegan and Blair, is a show dedicated to watching, analyzing, and discussing the movies that make us think about them long after we’ve left the theater or turned off the TV. We bring quick wit and unique perspectives from backgrounds like art history, cinematography, psychology, analysis, public education, mysticism, mythos, and more to create a curated, inclusive conversation around the spooky movies we love. Tune in on your favorite podcast hosting platform to listen along, join the conversation, and chime in with your own observations!

Our intro and outro music was created for us by Josh Marshall. For more episodes and other spooky content, find us on your favorite social media platform through our handle: @CleverGhouls. Don’t forget to subscribe and share, and if you really like our content, please leave us a review. Or we’ll haunt you forever. Thanks for listening!

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In this minisode, join Maegan as she explores and breaks down the subjects of epigenetics and generational trauma. Both are are fascinating concepts that are being explored in horror films a lot lately. These films often utilize the concepts to explore the idea of how our environment can affect our genetic makeup, and how these changes can be passed down through successive generations. By examining these concepts, horror films can provide an interesting and often terrifying look into the potential dangers of our environment and the power of our ancestral histories.

Referencces:

• “A Legacy of Trauma.” Stanford Medicine Bulletin, Spring 2019, stanmed.stanford.edu/2019spring/book-unspeakable-mind-ptsd-expert-shaili-jain-trauma-legacy.html.
• https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/02/legacy-trauma
• https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23336536/

The Clever Ghouls podcast, hosted by Maegan and Blair, is a show dedicated to watching, analyzing, and discussing the movies that make us think about them long after we’ve left the theater or turned off the TV. We bring quick wit and unique perspectives from backgrounds like art history, cinematography, psychology, analysis, public education, mysticism, mythos, and more to create a curated, inclusive conversation around the spooky movies we love. Tune in on your favorite podcast hosting platform to listen along, join the conversation, and chime in with your own observations!

Our intro and outro music was created for us by Josh Marshall. For more episodes and other spooky content, find us on your favorite social media platform through our handle: @CleverGhouls. Don’t forget to subscribe and share, and if you really like our content, please leave us a review. Or we’ll haunt you forever. Thanks for listening!

Send us a text

The Clever Ghouls podcast, hosted by Maegan and Blair, is a show dedicated to watching, analyzing, and discussing the movies that make us think about them long after we’ve left the theater or turned off the TV. We bring quick wit and unique perspectives from backgrounds like art history, cinematography, psychology, analysis, public education, mysticism, mythos, and more to create a curated, inclusive conversation around the spooky movies we love. Tune in on your favorite podcast hosting platform to listen along, join the conversation, and chime in with your own observations!

Our intro and outro music was created for us by Josh Marshall. For more episodes and other spooky content, find us on your favorite social media platform through our handle: @CleverGhouls. Don’t forget to subscribe and share, and if you really like our content, please leave us a review. Or we’ll haunt you forever. Thanks for listening!

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On this episode, the Clever Ghouls discuss The VVitch, the 2016 historical psychological horror film written and directed by Robert Eggers. The film features a Puritan family in the early 17th century who are ostracized from their settlement and are forced to make their way in the wilderness, where they encounter all sorts of supernatural and scary things. Join us as we take a closer look at this film and talk about themes such as religious horror, reality vs. perception, temptation, groupthink, and humans as the REAL monsters.

This film is rated R for disturbing violent content and graphic nudity; however, we want to expand on this list a bit and let you know about a few more things that might be triggering, such as dead animals, child abduction and sacrifice, religious trauma, abuse, and gaslighting. For more information we invite you to visit The VVitch’s listing on DoesTheDogDie.com.

This episode has a BUNCH of minisodes that accompany it, so definitely take some time to listen to those for even MORE in-depth content! :

• Blasphemous & Diabolical: Puritanism & the Obsession with Witchcraft | Minisode w/ Blair
• Last Girl Standing: The Evolution of the Final Girl | Minisode w/ Maegan
• Elizabeth Knapp | The Real Life Inspiration for The VVitch | Minisode w/ Blair 
• Moon Goddess | Lunar Symbolism in Storytelling | Minisode w/ Blair
• Mommy Dearest: Mothers, Motherhood & Maternal Portrayal in Horror | Minisode w/ Maegan
• The Devil Made Her Do It: Subgenre of Exorcism Horror & Female Hysteria | Minisode w/ Maegan & Blair
• The Body Never Forgets: Epigenetics & Generational Trauma | Minisode w/  Maegan

This episode was organized and edited by Blair.

The Clever Ghouls podcast, hosted by Maegan and Blair, is a show dedicated to watching, analyzing, and discussing the movies that make us think about them long after we’ve left the theater or turned off the TV. We bring quick wit and unique perspectives from backgrounds like art history, cinematography, psychology, analysis, public education, mysticism, mythos, and more to create a curated, inclusive conversation around the spooky movies we love. Tune in on your favorite podcast hosting platform to listen along, join the conversation, and chime in with your own observations!

Our intro and outro music was created for us by Josh Marshall. For more episodes and other spooky content, find us on your favorite social media platform through our handle: @CleverGhouls. Don’t forget to subscribe and share, and if you really like our content, please leave us a review. Or we’ll haunt you forever. Thanks for listening!

Send us a text

The Clever Ghouls podcast, hosted by Maegan and Blair, is a show dedicated to watching, analyzing, and discussing the movies that make us think about them long after we’ve left the theater or turned off the TV. We bring quick wit and unique perspectives from backgrounds like art history, cinematography, psychology, analysis, public education, mysticism, mythos, and more to create a curated, inclusive conversation around the spooky movies we love. Tune in on your favorite podcast hosting platform to listen along, join the conversation, and chime in with your own observations!

Our intro and outro music was created for us by Josh Marshall. For more episodes and other spooky content, find us on your favorite social media platform through our handle: @CleverGhouls. Don’t forget to subscribe and share, and if you really like our content, please leave us a review. Or we’ll haunt you forever. Thanks for listening!