To start Women’s History Month and ahead of Maggie Gyllenhaal’s bold 2026 reimagining, The Bride!, we’re going back to dissect the 1935 classic The Bride of Frankenstein. We aim to uncover why an 8-minute performance by Elsa Lanchester remains the ultimate icon of bodily autonomy.

We explore how Mary Shelley’s own history with agency helped birth a "monstrous" creation who refuses to play the role of the passive mate. From the James Whale adaptation to modern echoes in Edward Scissorhands, we discuss the radical moral agency of the Bride, her rejection of a "made-to-order" existence, and why her defiant "No" is more relevant today than ever.

Key discussion points:

• ​The 8-Minute Icon: Why the Bride’s brief screen time defined a century of feminine defiance.
• ​Manufacturing Consent: The dark ethics behind scientific "god-complexes" and women’s bodies.
• ​Reclaiming Eve: Shifting the narrative from a subservient partner to a powerful agent of choice.
• ​From Shelley to Gyllenhaal: How the Bride continues to evolve as a symbol of women’s history and resistance.

Dr. Kristy Whaley is faculty at St. Petersburg College, where she teaches both religion and humanities. Her interdisciplinary interests are primarily centered on Christian theology and literature, but often also stray into pop culture, mostly about Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Lost.

To celebrate the release of Scream 7 (2026) and the 30th anniversary of Wes Craven’s Scream, we take a dive deep into why this meta-slasher remains the ultimate blueprint for subversive horror. From Leah’s illicit childhood theater trip (post-Spice Girls, naturally) to an academic look at horror tropes, we explore how Ghostface transitioned from a 90s phone-line predator to a mirror for our modern digital anxieties.

In This Episode, We Discuss:

• ​The Drew Barrymore Effect: How killing off a mega-star in the first ten minutes rewrote the horror rulebook and kept audiences looking over their shoulders.
• ​The Era of Phone-Age Terror: A nostalgic look at dedicated teen phone lines and why 1996’s "limited connectivity" was the perfect ingredient for isolation and fear.
• ​Digital Masks & Social Media: Drawing parallels between the Ghostface mask and our online personas. Does social media actually connect us, or just provide a new way to hide?
• ​The Ethics of Gale Weathers: A character study on Gale as the ultimate "content creator." We debate who is more dangerous: the person behind the mask or the person profiting from the tragedy.
• ​Authenticity in the Digital Age: Leah shares a personal story about meeting her partner, Stuart, online and the high-stakes "vibe check" required to bridge the gap between URL and IRL.

Rev. Dr. Leah Robinson is a practical theologian at Mercer University in Atlanta and previously taught at the Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh. Her research employs ethnographic studies of lived religion to explore politics, history, the American South, feminism, liberation theology, and social justice.

Dr. Robinson has authored three books: Embodied Peacebuilding (Peter Lang), Bad Theology (SCM), and Bad Theology in COVID (Palgrave Macmillan). Her forthcoming book, Born Perfect or Boy Erased: Bad Theology and the Ex-Gay Movement (Bloomsbury), is slated for 2026. She currently serves as chair of the editorial board for the journal Practical Theology (Routledge) and is President-Elect of the American Academy of Religion Southeast. In her free time, she enjoys wine, cats, the beach, and—most days—her beloved Georgia Bulldogs.

Is Jack Torrance a victim of a haunted hotel, or is he the architect of his own destruction? This week, Ryan sits down with theology and ethics professor Michael Morelli to dissect Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. From the "male loneliness epidemic" to the chilling parallels between the film and modern toxic masculinity.

Key Discussion Points:

• ​The Fragility of the Father: Why Jack Torrance’s failure as a writer is the true catalyst for his descent. We discuss the "shattered masculinity" that makes the Overlook Hotel so seductive to him.
• ​The Male Loneliness Epidemic: A modern lens on an old classic. Is Jack’s isolation a supernatural curse or a reflection of the withdrawal and rage seen in contemporary social issues?
• ​Colonialism & Control: Deconstructing the hotel as a symbol of the "colonial master." How the desire for dominance mirrors Jack’s internal struggle for power over his family.
• ​The Wendy Dynamic: A difficult look at enablement, trauma dynamics, and why redemption requires more than just "sorry"—it requires a total repair of the damage caused.

​Michael Morelli is the Associate Professor of Theology & Ethics at Northwest College & Seminary and ACTS Seminaries. Both are affiliates of Trinity Western University. He’s also an adjunct professor of theology of at Trinity’s Religious Studies and Nursing Schools. He has a PhD in Theological Ethics from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland and is the author of Theology, Ethics, and Technology in the Work of Jacques Ellul and Paul Virilio: A Nascent Theological Tradition (Lexington Books) and editor of Desert, Wilderness, Wasteland, and Word: A New Essay By Jacques Ellul and Five Critical Engagements (Pickwick). Michael publishes and presents on a variety of topics within the fields of theology, morality, culture, politics, technology, and dis/ability. He’s also worked in local church ministry and continues to serve the church in a lay capacity. He lives in Langley, British Columbia, Canada, with his wife and two kids.

Links:

- Substack: personalistmanifestos.substack.com

- Instagram, BlueSky, and Twitter/X: @mchlmorelli

As “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” comes to theaters and streaming we dive into Danny Boyle’s 2002 masterpiece, 28 Days Later. We explore how its "Rage Virus" serves as a hauntingly accurate metaphor for today’s outrage culture. We discuss the film’s origins, its gritty aesthetic, and the thin line between "justified" anger and the mindless fury that dismantles civilization.

Rev. Dr. Leah Robinson is a practical theologian at Mercer University in Atlanta and previously taught at the Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh. Her research employs ethnographic studies of lived religion to explore politics, history, the American South, feminism, liberation theology, and social justice.

Dr. Robinson has authored three books: Embodied Peacebuilding (Peter Lang), Bad Theology (SCM), and Bad Theology in COVID (Palgrave Macmillan). Her forthcoming book, Born Perfect or Boy Erased: Bad Theology and the Ex-Gay Movement (Bloomsbury), is slated for 2026. She currently serves as chair of the editorial board for the journal Practical Theology (Routledge) and is President-Elect of the American Academy of Religion Southeast. In her free time, she enjoys wine, cats, the beach, and—most days—her beloved Georgia Bulldogs.