We are still in the no man’s land between Christmas and New Year’s Day, so hopefully this second part of my two-part episode on the BBC’s original Ghost Stories for Christmas series with Will Dodson will get you through. As a reminder, in part one we discussed six M.R. James adaptations, mostly from the original series. Part two takes us through the final three episodes, The Signalman (1976), Stigma (1977), and The Ice House (1978), plus two spin off films, The Stone Tape (1972), and Schalcken the Painter (1979), and one last M.R. James television adaptation, Casting the Runes (1979) from ITV Playhouse.

And if you missed Will’s info the first time around, he’s an academic focusing on film and media studies and some of you might know him from his special features work on various blu-rays with Ryan Verril (find a complete list of their work here). He’s also edited a number of film books, namely American Twilight: The Cinema of Tobe Hooper.

Eros + Massacre will be back in 2025! Thank you for all the support this year and thanks always to Cinepunx!

The post Eros + Massacre Episode 15: Ghost Stories for Christmas with Will Dodson, Part 2 appeared first on Cinepunx.

My sweet Yuletide angels, here is the other two-part episode I’m shoehorning into this December. I’ll have the second part up later this week (though it will be on my Patreon earlier) so you all have something to listen to when you’re driving to and fro family holiday events this week. I have been absolutely dying to do an episode on the BBC’s original Ghost Stories for Christmas series. I’m grateful it finally happened because this was such a joy and I was thankful to find a cohost insane enough to agree to watch and discuss everything on my list, Will Dodson.

Will is an academic focusing on film and media studies and some of you might know him from his special features work on various blu-rays with Ryan Verril (find a complete list of their work here). He’s also edited a number of film books, namely American Twilight: The Cinema of Tobe Hooper.

In this first part, we discuss the precursor film, Whistle and I’ll Come to You (1968), as well as the first five official Ghost Stories for Christmas episodes: The Stalls of Barchester (1971), A Warning to the Curious (1972), Lost Hearts (1973), The Treasure of Abbot Thomas (1974), and The Ash Tree (1975). All of these are adaptations of M.R. James stories, so we talk a lot about him as well — ghost stories and folk horror would not be the same without him.

Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and I hope Santa brings you a lot of ghost stories this year!

The post Eros + Massacre Episode 14: Ghost Stories for Christmas with Will Dodson, Part 1 appeared first on Cinepunx.

Here is part two of this journey through Teruo Ishii’s Joys of Torture with Chris Haskell (from the They Live By Film and Punk Vacation podcasts). Part one covered Tokugawa: Women’s Genealogy (1968), Shogun’s Joy of Torture (1968), and Orgies of Edo (1969), and in this episode we packed in Shameless: Abnormal and Abusive Love (1969), Inferno of Torture (1969), Yakuza Law (1969), Love and Crime (1969), and Shogun’s Sadism aka Oxen Split Torturing (1976).

And just a reminder that if you want to watch along but are struggling with where to locate some of these, email me (at [email protected]) and I can help you out! Several of them are on blu-ray from Arrow and they’re currently on sale, in beautiful editions with great special features from the GOATs Tom Mes and Jasper Sharp.

The post Eros + Massacre Episode 13: Teruo Ishii’s Joys of Torture with Chris Haskell, part 2 appeared first on Cinepunx.

After a much needed break, I’m back! I have been DYING to do a few podcast episodes on underrated Japanese master Teruo Ishii and Chris Haskell (from the They Live By Film and Punk Vacation podcasts) was kind enough to agree to my insane demand that we cover all the films in Ishii’s Joys of Torture series. Ishii directed seven films in 1968 and 1969 for Toei that explore torture, sexual obsession, sadism, toxic relationships, crime, and debauchery in a series of movies that are only thematically connected (plus one loose “sequel” made by Yuji Makiguchi in 1976). Some of these are anthology films, others are standalone tales; most are period set, while a few are contemporary. I decided to split this in two parts because we had so much to say, so this first episode is an introduction to the series and Ishii, and covers Tokugawa: Women’s Genealogy (1968), Shogun’s Joy of Torture (1968), and Orgies of Edo (1969). If you want to watch along but are struggling with where to locate some of these, email me at [email protected] and I can help you out.

Thanks as always to Cinepunx and please rate, review, follow, and share! And stay tuned for part 2 of this Ishii episode in just a few days.

The post Eros + Massacre Episode 12: Teruo Ishii’s Joys of Torture with Chris Haskell, part 1 appeared first on Cinepunx.

For the latest Eros + Massacre episode, designer, writer, musician, and jack of all trades Christopher Norris joined me to talk about one of our mutual favorites, Alain Robbe-Grillet, a giant of modern French literature, a genius filmmaker, and an unabashed pervert. We focused on three of his classic films, each from a different decade: Trans-Europ-Express (1966), Le jeu avec le feu (Playing with Fire, 1975), and La belle captive (The Beautiful Prisoner, 1983). And of course the conversation includes everything from Jess Franco and Jacques Rivette to Marguerite Duras and White Chicks, among other things.

You can find Christopher at Steakmtn.com, on Instagram, and on Twitter. His fiction is here at Asterism Books.

Additional notes:

Thanks as always to Cinepunx and please rate, review, follow, and share!

The post Eros + Massacre Episode 11: The Labyrinth of Robbe-Grillet with Christopher Norris appeared first on Cinepunx.

Andrew Nette, my co-editor on Revolution in 35mm, joined me for this rather intense episode about Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers (1966). We talk a lot about the film’s powerful impact, the Algerian struggle for independence from French colonial occupation, the cost and effectiveness of violence, Pontecorvo’s time in the Italian resistance during WWII, his career more broadly, and the use of The Battle of Algiers as a training tool for political radicals.

We also discuss films made around the same time that addressed the war, particularly Youssef Chahine’s incredible Jamila, The Algerian (1958). In addition to being one of the only films in cinema history to focus on a female freedom fighter as central to a battle for independence, it was also one of the only film actually made during the Algerian War and from a North African country. And Jean-Luc Godard’s forgotten and neglected Le petit soldat (1960) also makes an appearance. 

You can find Andrew at @pulpcurry on social media and here on his website! And of course you can find our book here from PM Press. Thanks as always to Cinepunx and please rate, review, follow, and share!

The post Eros + Massacre Episode 10: The Battle of Algiers with Andrew Nette appeared first on Cinepunx.

Starting this September, the Criterion Channel is running a series on giallo films. It includes thirteen films from The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963) through Tenebrae (1982), covering a lot of the greatest hits of the genre with a few added bonus in the mix as well. Criterion video editor, Channel programmer, and all around lovely person Clyde Folley was kind enough to join me to talk about this series, which he programmed. We discuss the challenges of programming a series like this, the genre as a whole, our favorite films in the series, the magic of Nieves Navarro, our mutual love for In the Folds of the Flesh, and a lot of other unexpected topics (like Thai made for TV horror).

In the episode, Clyde mentions that he’s programming a Brad Dourif series in October at Anthology: you can learn more about that here. I also mention that I wrote an essay on the giallo subgenre to go along with the series which is now up on the Criterion site.

Here’s an obligatory reminder that my upcoming book Revolution in 35mm through PM Press is on its way out in the world this September! Thanks as always to Cinepunx and please rate, review, follow, and share!

The post Eros + Massacre Episode 9: Giallo Fever with Clyde Folley appeared first on Cinepunx.

It broke my heart that the absolutely wonderful Donald Sutherland died this summer, even though he lived a long, extremely full life, so I knew I needed to do an episode on some aspect of his sprawling career. Robert Skvarla was kind enough to join me to talk about some of Sutherland’s thriller films from the 1970s and ’80s. We focused primarily on Alan Pakula’s Klute (1971), but also discussed Bob Clark’s Murder By Decree (1979), Richard Marquand’s Eye of the Needle (1981), and naturally brought up a host of other related films like Don’t Look Now and my new favorite, The Disappearance (1977).

One of my love languages is listening to Rob talk about conspiracy theories, so there is a lot of that in here, ranging from Sutherland’s own experience with radical politics and activism in the ’70s, as well as a broader history of FBI surveillance. You can find Rob here on Twitter (where he is famous) and here on Instagram.

And you can see us together for the Revolution in 35mm book launch in Philadelphia at PhilaMOCA later this month on September 25.

Here’s an obligatory reminder that my upcoming book Revolution in 35mm is up for preorder through PM Press and is on its way out in the world this September! Thanks as always to Cinepunx and please rate, review, follow, and share!

The post Eros + Massacre Episode 8: Donald Sutherland is Tapping Your Phone with Robert Skvarla appeared first on Cinepunx.

Over the years I’ve talked a lot about how Fulci’s City of the Living Dead (1980) changed my life as a young teenager and so it goes without saying that Fabio Frizzi’s music has also had a huge impact on me. This September, he’s taking a Zombie live score on an American tour and he was kind enough to speak with me ahead of that. We talk about his process composing, how he approaches films, and what it was like to work with Fulci, but it was also important to me to get in some questions about his incredible scores for with other directors like Aldo Lado, Bruno Corbucci, and Enzo Castellari. And YOU KNOW I had to ask about Superfantagenio.

At the end of the episode, I also monologued more about his career and tried to focus on some films he scored that I think are underrated or outright neglected. I also compiled an ultimate Fabio Frizzi playlist! 

Here’s an obligatory reminder that my upcoming book Revolution in 35mm is up for preorder through PM Press and will be out in the world next week (!!!), so please spread the word! Thanks as always to Cinepunx and since this is a brand new show and it needs all the help it can get, please rate, review, follow, and share!

The post Eros + Massacre Episode 7: An Interview With Maestro Fabio Frizzi appeared first on Cinepunx.

I have been wanting to do an episode on American International Pictures’ beach party series with Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello FOR YEARS. I absolutely love these films and I’m so grateful to my pal Keith Allison, a film and pop culture writer, for going on this long and very sandy journey with me. We talk about what I consider the main films in the series — Beach Party (1963), Muscle Beach Party (1964), Bikini Beach (1964), Beach Blanket Bingo (1965), How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (1965), and Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1966) — and a lot of related topics like teen culture, surfer music, the innovations of American International Pictures, America in the ’60s, the ARKOFF formula, why Frankie and Annette do not remotely belong on a beach in California, and much much more.

Keith wrote a great book that you should check out, Cocktails and Capers: Cult Cinema, Cocktails, Crime, & Cool, and you can find him here on Instagram.

Here’s an obligatory reminder that my upcoming book Revolution in 35mm is up for preorder through PM Press and will be out in the world next week (!!!), so please spread the word! Thanks as always to Cinepunx and since this is a brand new show and it needs all the help it can get, please rate, review, follow, and share!

The post Eros + Massacre Episode 6: Beach Party Bonanza with Keith Allison appeared first on Cinepunx.