Genre Grinder

COME WITH US AS WE CONTINUE OUR CROSS-COUNTRY TREK THROUGH THE DARKEST BOULEVARDS AND ALLEYWAYS OF THE 'ME DECADE' UNDERGROUND!

After Night of the Living Dead (1968) and before the slasher boom of the early '80s, American horror went through one of its most creative and influential eras. But, for every Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), Carrie (1976), and Halloween (1978), there were dozens of under-the-radar oddities that took years – sometimes decades – to be recognized by cult audiences for their unique contributions to American horror. Join Gabe and special guest Bill Ackerman of the Supporting Characters podcast and numerous Blu-ray commentary tracks as they explore another collection of independent horror films from the period, including George A. Romero's Season of the Witch (aka: Jack's Wife and Hungry Wives, 1973), Gloria Katz & Willard Huyck's Messiah of Evil (1973), Bob Clark's Deathdream (aka: Dead of Night, 1972), Matt Cimber's The Witch Who Came from the Sea (1976), Martin Goldman's Dark August (1976), and S.F. Brownrigg's Keep My Grave Open (1976).

00:00 – Intro

00:53 – Season of the Witch (and other George Romero movies)

16:08 – Messiah of Evil

31:59 – Deathdream (and other Bob Clark & Alan Ormsby movies)

49:10 – The Witch Who Came from the Sea

1:06:40 – Dark August

1:23:13 – Keep My Grave Open (and other S.F. Brownrigg movies)

1:35:07 – Outro

Please consider donating to the following charities/fundraisers if you have any spare cash:

Minnesota Freedom Fund: https://mnfreedomfund.org/bailbond-referral

Sanctuary Supply Depot Minneapolis: https://linktr.ee/sanctuarysupplydepot

Alight (Afghan refugee fund for the MPLS/SP area): https://wearealight1857.ac-page.com/alight-welcome-home-landing-pg

Documenting MN (Black youth community-led journalism internship program): https://linktr.ee/DocumentingMN

WELCOME TO THE END OF THE SUMMER OF LOVE AND THE BEGINNING OF A COUNTERCULTURE DEATHTRIP THAT WILL SCARE YOU TO DEATH!

After Night of the Living Dead (1968) and before the slasher boom of the early '80s, American horror went through one of its most creative and influential eras. But, for every Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), Carrie (1976), and Halloween (1978), there were dozens of under-the-radar oddities that took years – sometimes decades – to be recognized by cult audiences for their unique contributions to American horror. Join Gabe and special guest Bill Ackerman of the Supporting Characters podcast and numerous Blu-ray commentary tracks as they explore a collection of independent horror films from the era, including John Hayes' Dream No Evil (1970), John Hancock's Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1971), Alan Rudolph's Premonition (1972), Robert Altman's Images (1972), and Richard Blackburn's Lemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural (1973). Stay tuned for Part 2 next month.

00:00 – Intro

11:15 – Dream No Evil

25:17 – Let's Scare Jessica to Death

43:45 – Premonition

55:36 – Images

1:11:51 – Lemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural

Outro song – "Let's Scare Jessica to Death" by Left Hand Black: ​​https://lefthandblack1.bandcamp.com/track/lets-scare-jessica-to-death

Please consider donating to the following charities/fundraisers if you have any spare cash:

Abortion Access Fund, Inc: https://abortionaccessfund.org/

Solidarity Fund for striking Apple and Netflix employees: https://coworkerfund.org/contribute/

ACER: African Career, Education, and Resources, Inc. (nonprofit support for African immigrant communities in Minneapolis suburbs): https://acerinc.org/

National Center for Transgender Equality: https://transequality.org/

LEAVE THE SPOOKY SIDE OF DEATH BEHIND THIS MONTH AND JOIN US ON A JOURNEY INTO THE ROMANCE, COMEDY, AND BUREAUCRACY OF THE AFTERLIFE.

We'll get back to scary things next month, because this month is all about the wholesome possibilities of death stories. Gabe and returning guest Tyler Foster explore a surprisingly prevalent subgenre of romantic comedies concerning the processes of the afterlife. Avoiding movies that focused too much on haunting or possession, we still ended up with a list of seven movies that share a curious number of concepts and tropes in common – Alexander Hall's Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941), Victor Fleming's A Guy Named Joe (1943), Vincente Minnelli's Cabin in the Sky (1943), Ernst Lubitsch's Heaven Can Wait (1943), Powell & Pressburger's A Matter of Life and Death (aka: Stairway to Heaven, 1946), Warren Beatty & Buck Henry's Here Comes Mr. Jordan remake, Heaven Can Wait (not otherwise related to the Lubitsch movie, 1978), and Albert Brooks' Defending Your Life (1991). In the process of breaking these films down, we also talk briefly about Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life (1947), Steven Spielberg's A Guy Named Joe remake (Always [1989]), and Paul & Chris Weitz' Here Comes Mr. Jordan remake (Down to Earth [2001]).

00:00 – Intro

7:13 – Here Comes Mr. Jordan

19:36 – A Guy Named Joe

36:01 – Cabin in the Sky

47:12 – Heaven Can Wait (1943)

56:36 – A Matter of Life and Death

1:14:06 – Heaven Can Wait (1978)

1:31:15 – Defending Your Life

1:46:03 – Outro

Please consider donating to the following charities/fundraisers if you have any spare cash:

Abortion Access Fund, Inc:​​ https://abortionaccessfund.org/

UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) Gaza Crisis Appeal: https://donate.unrwa.org/gaza/

Lilith Fund (Texas abortion access): https://www.lilithfund.org/

National Center for Transgender Equality: https://transequality.org/

RETURN TO THE GREATEST YEAR IN HORROR HISTORY FOR MORE IRONIC PUNISHMENTS, FIERY INFERNOS, CURSED TOWNS, BLOODTHIRSTY WITCHES, AND SEXY LIBRARIANS!

Happy Halloween hangover, everyone! Welcome back to 1960 and a deep dive into three more stone cold classics. Well, more like two classics and a movie that has an awful lot in common with some stone cold classics. Gabe and returning guest Patrick Ripoll of Tracks of the Damned had already talked about Georges Franju's Eyes without a Face, Michael Powell's Peeping Tom, and Roger Corman's (Fall of the) House of Usher in part one and, this time, they're covering Nobuo Nakagawa's Jigoku, Mario Bava's Black Sunday, and John Llewellyn Moxey's City of the Dead.

00:00 – Jigoku

18:42 – Black Sunday

50:05 – Interlude (other 1960 horror movies)

54:09 – City of the Dead

1:21:07 – Outro

Here's the complete Letterboxd list that we were originally working from: https://letterboxd.com/gabepowers/list/1960s-horror-movies/

PSYCHOPATHS! PEEPING TOMS! CRUMBLING HOUSES! EYELESS FACES! CITIES OF THE DEAD! LITERAL HELL!

Happy Halloween! It's time to settle some schoolyard arguments and decide once and for all the most incredible year in horror cinema history. Our world's greatest scientists, historians, and statisticians have compiled all the pertinent data and come to the following conclusion: 1960 was the best year for horror movies. Gabe and returning guest Patrick Ripoll of Tracks of the Damned parsed 32 of the year's genre releases and chose six to discuss at length – Georges Franju's Eyes without a Face, Michal Powell's Peeping Tom, Roger Corman's (Fall of the) House of Usher, Nobuo Nakagawa's Jigoku, Mario Bava's Black Sunday, and John Llewellyn Moxey's City of the Dead. Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho also comes up constantly, but not at length, because it's one of the most popular movies ever made.

This didn't end up being as long as some of Gabe & Patrick's other list episodes, but the discussion still went long, so the three-hour episode has been split into two Fun-Sized treats (instead of three or four, so don't worry).

00:00 – Intro: Why 1960? and a brief history of horror movie booms

17:40 – Eyes without a Face

44:46 – Peeping Tom

1:05:57 – (Fall of the) House of Usher

Here's the complete Letterboxd list that we were originally working from: https://letterboxd.com/gabepowers/list/1960s-horror-movies/

Time to sit back and vibe with more spooky music and movie clips. I've decided to put the Halloween mix onto the main podcast stream this year, instead of SoundCloud. I tried to dig deep into my archives to include songs, themes, and remixes that I've never used for another Halloween mix. Please enjoy and have a happy Halloween!

Here is the complete track mix:

1. Martha & the Horses by Damon Albarn & Michael Nyman (Ravenous OST)

2. Die Klapperschlange by The Splash Band (1984 disco remix of John Carpenter's Escape from New York title theme)

3. Demonica by Simon Boswell (Demons 2/Demoni 2 OST)

4. Out of Time by Claudio Simonetti (Demons/Demoni OST)

5. Lesbo (Film Version) by Simonetti Morante Pignatelli (Tenebrae OST)

6. Seq. 1 by Guido & Maurizio de Angelis (Alien 2: Sulla Terra OST)

7. Pericolo by Daniela Casa (Sovrapposizione Di Immagini)

8. Metric 36 by Cavern of Anti-Matter (In Fabric OST)

9. La Comtesse et L'Inspecteur/The Countess and the Inspector by François de Roubaix

10. Dismembered Bodies by Guido & Maurizio de Angelis (Torso/I corpi presentano tracce di violenza carnale OST)

11. Transmute by Goblin (Patrick OST)

12. Inseminoid by John Scott (Inseminoid OST)

13. Block by Chu Ishikawa (Tetsuo the Bullet Man OST)

14. Sign in the Dark by Tangerine Dream (The Keep OST)

15. Demon Knights by Carlo Cordio (Aenigma OST)

16. Crawling Around by Chuck Cirino (Chopping Mall OST)

17. The Chase Continues (Po's Plane) by Rick Wakeman (The Burning OST)

18. Blind Concert by Goblin (Suspiria OST)

19. Verso L'Ignoto by Fabio Frizzi (The Beyond/L'Aldila OST)

20. John Dalton Street by Guiullano Sorgini & John Cacavas (Living Dead at Manchester Morgue OST)

21. TerrorVision by The Fibonaccis (TerrorVision OST)

DEAR BIG SEXY MONSTER, DO YOU LIKE ME, A SMALL, NORMAL HUMAN? [_] YES [_] NO

Does your significant other sport a lush fur coat and fangs? Does your boyfriend have razor sharp talons, instead of feet? Is your wife the legendary chupacabra? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you might be a Monster Lover. Or perhaps "love" is too serious a word for it. Maybe you're just a down 'n dirty Monster F#©ker? Either way, boy, have we got the episode of Genre Grinder for you.

Join Gabe and first-time special guest Arianny Pilarte (@laciguapa) of Not All Podcasts Wear Capes fame as we talk about the long-standing fictional phenomenon of loving, smooching, and screwing movie monsters, from vampires and zombies, to Beasts (of the "Beauty and" variety) and fishmen. This is a broad subject, so, for this podcast, we've narrowed it down to four movies: Kathryn Bigelow's Near Dark (1987), Tony Ching Siu-Tung's Chinese Ghost Story (1987), Brian Yuzna's Return of the Living Dead III (1993), and Joel Schumacher's Phantom of the Opera (2004). Note that we occasionally had some latency issues, so Gabe talks to himself for a few minutes during the Near Dark discussion. He blames gremlins, specifically that sexy one from Gremlins 2.

00:00 – Intro: What is a Monster F#©ker?

04:49 – Near Dark and other human/vampire romance

23:58 – Chinese Ghost Story

41:52 – Return of the Living Dead III and other human/zombie romance

1:03:51 – The Phantom of the Opera (2004 and beyond)

1:30:51 – Other Monster F#©kers and outro

Check out Not All Podcasts Wear Capes here (or wherever you download your podcasts): https://notallpods.podbean.com/

Please consider donating to the following charities/fundraisers if you have any spare cash:

UNICEF Afghanistan Humanitarian Aid: https://www.unicefusa.org/stories/nearly-10m-children-afghanistan-need-humanitarian-aid-now/38936

Direct Relief Haiti Earthquake Relief: https://www.directrelief.org/emergency/haiti-earthquake-2021/ Lilith Fund (Texas abortion access): https://secure.everyaction.com/ZKj2BPy6bkaxpudp-4YwUQ2 Second Harvest Food Bank of South Louisiana (Hurricane Ida relief): https://no-hunger.org/

TAKE A SEAT, PUT YOUR NAPKIN ON YOUR LAP, AND UNDO YOUR BELT – YOU'RE IN FOR A VERITABLE BANQUET OF MOVIES ABOUT FOOD!

Prepare yourself for the most mouthwatering, scrumptious, toothsome, and downright yummy episode of Genre Grinder yet. Gabe and returning guest/his significant other/food buddy, Kristine Fisher – who knows a thing or two about cooking – chow down on six courses of food-themed movies that mostly fit the concept of magical realism, including Jûzô Itami's Tampopo (1985), Gabriel Axel's Babette's Feast (Danish: Babettes gæstebud, 1987), Peter Greenaway's The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989), Alfonso Aráu's Like Water for Chocolate (Spanish: Como agua para chocolate, 1992), Stephen Chow's The God of Cookery (1996), and Stanley Tucci & Campbell Scott's Big Night (1996).

Please be aware that we recorded with two mics and it caused some weird crackly (thankfully not too loud) feedback to crop up every once in a while. I've done my best to mitigate the problem where I could and apologize for not fixing it during recording.

• 00:00 – Intro, food documentaries, classic food scenes
• 11:33 – Tampopo
• 23:37 – Babette's Feast
• 36:19 – The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover
• 59:19 – Like Water for Chocolate
• 1:12:30 – The God of Cookery
• 1:28:05 – Big Night
• 1:43:20 – Outro

Please consider donating to the following charities/fundraisers if you have any spare cash:

Second Harvest Heartland (MN food bank): https://secure.2harvest.org

National Immigrant Justice Center: https://immigrantjustice.org/

Immigration Justice Campaign: https://immigrationjustice.us/

UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) Gaza Crisis Appeal: https://donate.unrwa.org/gaza/

CATCH A TRIP INTO THE AFROFUTURE ABOARD A SHIP PILOTED BY SPACE-AGE PROPHETS, PHAROANIC JESTERS, METEOR MEN, AND OTHER BROTHERS FROM ANOTHER PLANET!

What might the world look like in a universe where Africa hadn't been colonized? What might the race relations of our world look like to a visitor from outer space? What if Superman was a Black nerd from D.C.? What if malevolent aliens crash landed in the London projects? These questions and more will be answered in Genre Grinder's look at Afrofuturism and Black sci-fi/fantasy movies. Join Gabe and returning guest host Justin Clark of Slant Magazine & Game Spot as they attempt to parse this wide-ranging, unique, and socially relevant genre by looking at five films – John Coney's Space is the Place (1974), John Sayles' The Brother from Another Planet (1984), Robert Townsend's The Meteor Man (1993), Joe Cornish's Attack the Block (2011), and Boots Riley's Sorry to Bother You (2018). They also take time to chat briefly about other relevant films.

00:00 – Intro

07:16 – Space is the Place (+ Lizzie Borden's Born in Flames [1983])

25:27 – The Brother from Another Planet

42:14 – Meteor Man (+ the Blade movies, the Alien vs. Predator franchise, and Ngozi Onwurah's Welcome II the Terrordome [1995])

1:26:00 – Attack the Block (+ the Black Panther comics and movie)

1:43:31 – Sorry to Bother You

1:55:31 – Outro, Ava DuVernay's A Wrinkle in Time (2018), Colm McCarthy's The Girl with All the Gifts (2016 + Last of Us and the Sweet Tooth comic), and Stefon Bristol's See You Yesterday (2019)

Check out Justin's Resident Evil Village walkthrough at Game Spot

Please consider donating to the following charities/fundraisers if you have any spare cash:

UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) Gaza Crisis Appeal (critical healthcare, construction, food, and education)

Black Lives Matter Daunte Wright Family/Community Support

George Floyd Memorial Foundation

National Bail Fund Network Directory

THE REVOLUTION WILL BE TELEVISED AND IT WILL BE BROUGHT TO YOU EXCLUSIVELY BY MING TEA! TURN ON, TUNE IN, DROP DEAD!

Psychotic games and sadistic reality television are on the docket this month. Gabe and returning guest Luana Saitta of Monster Island & Movie Lobby Commentaries check out three politically-charged classics about televised death sport, including Elio Petri's The 10th Victim (Italian: La decima vittima, 1965), Paul Bartel's Death Race 2000 (1975), and Paul Michael Glaser's The Running Man (1987). Come for the wacky costumes and violence, stay for the endless puns and surprisingly prescient social satire.

00:00 – Intro

06:23 – The 10th Victim

27:29 – Death Race 2000

1:05:43 – The Running Man

1:43:47 – Deathrow Gameshow (1987), Absolute Aggression (1996), and final thoughts

Check out Luana's Podcast, Monster Island & Movie Lobby Commentaries

This month's charity links include one of Luana's preferred charities, a listener request, and Palestinian relief resources. Please consider donating if you have any spare cash:

UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) Gaza Crisis Appeal (critical healthcare, construction, food, and education)

George Floyd Memorial Foundation

Support Black-Owned Businesses: 181 Places to Start Online

Mercy Housing (US affordable housing and support program)