It's April Fool's Day, which means we're talking about Fred Walton's April Fool's Day. Is this the Paddington 2 of comedy slashers? A testament to the psychopathy of the upper class? Both? Sabrina and Matt join Todd and Brogan to try and get to the bottom of what at the very least is the coolest poster for a slasher film themed after a lesser holiday.

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Today we're joined by Steve Rudzinski and Aleen Isley, the creative duo behind Silver Spotlight Films. They're best known for the CarousHELL trilogy, but they've also produced several Christmas films including A Meowy Christmas, Curtains for Christmas, and the award-winning Amityville Christmas Vacation. One of their favorite Christmas classics is Michael Cooney's 1997 cult classic Jack Frost, which may not have been seen by as many people as the 1998 Michael Keaton family film of the same name but did arguably have the coolest VHS cover any of us ever saw on the Blockbuster shelves.

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How do you talk about a film that eschews traditional narrative analysis and in fact seems to exist in open defiance of both film criticism and God? If you're Todd and Brogan (and special guests Amelia and Bobby) it involves a number of lengthy tangents, including multiple meandering discussions about 9/11 that — in a Franchise Fiends first — were so bizarre and off-topic that Brogan trimmed most of it out after realizing they totaled nearly a third of the runtime.

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Todd and Brogan rank the Saw films and traps. Brogan decides that one of his favorite traps is a Saw IV trap he initially made fun of but came to appreciate after seeing the same concept done much worse in Saw 3D, yet forgets to explain this when actually talking about the trap. A third season is announced.

We'll be talking about Scream next October but there will be plenty of specials and surprises in the meantime, starting next month with our very first Thanksgiving special.

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What better way to celebrate wrapping up the season than discussing the most acclaimed film in the series with two people who don't like the genre? John and Rachel join Todd and Brogan to provide a wholly new perspective as discuss the final film in the series (for now).

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Today we're joined by Max, the secret third member of the Franchise Fiends family. Max does all of our artwork so getting him on the pod is arguably cooler than Chris Rock and Samuel L. Jackson showing up in a Saw movie. Also... holy shit, Chris Rock and Samuel L. Jackson showed up in a Saw movie? Let's talk about that.

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Have you ever wished the Saw franchise felt a bit more like a CSI episode? Great news! Today we're joined by Rachel to talk about how Saw took advantage of the seven year hiatus between films to inject itself with some serious direct-to-video/TV movie vibes.

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Saw 3D didn't look very good in 3D which is why it was released as Saw: The Final Chapter on home video. It didn't end up being the final chapter, either, but Todd still thinks it was neat and Brogan appreciates Cary Elwes getting a few more seconds of screentime even if he doesn't think much of anything else worked.

Also, when was the last time you thanked a podcast editor? Thanks to some ongoing technical issues and a few bits that were better off being thrown back into the ether this one ended up more than an hour shorter than the original recording. Phew.

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In which Brogan admits that Todd was right (in regards to Saw VI being great and nothing else). Anchor and Brian stop by Franchise Fiends to talk about the major upgrade the franchise received after the underwhelming Saw V.

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Maybe the real Saw V was the much better movies we watched along the way? Todd and Brogan are joined by Mel and Liz to talk about the first major drop in quality for the Saw franchise, much of which involves reflecting on the better films that came before it. "Well at least there's less arguing about John Kramer's political affiliation." Thanks for noticing! It's because we got most of the debate out of the way before recording started.

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