Half Price Horror

Yes, we've heard it before. Yes, the slasher in a slasher franchise can never truly die. Yes, Michael Myers has been blown up, decapitated, shot more times than any reasonable human being can keep track of, and beaten to death with a length of pipe. But in a series that reboots instead of explaining, nobody's invulnerable forever, and it's time to go back to Haddonfield one "final" time as 'Halloween Ends'.

What do you get when you cross 'Boogie Nights' with 'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre'? You get a blood-soaked slasher full of porn stars trying to love free and make money and getting killed for their troubles, that's what! Join HPH for a trip into the Golden Age of Pornography as we examine Ti West's complex, controversial slasher 'X'!

It's still Halloween night in 2018, and Michael's legacy has left deep and serious psychic scars on the town called Haddonfield--no, wait, it's Halloween night in 2018 and Michael's about to unleash the raddest rampage on the sleepy little town of Haddonfield ever! They'll have to band together to stop him... um, in a serious exploration of the true cost of mob violence... and he's going to come home at last. In a melancholy way, of course. That's right, it's time to look at the most disjointed entry in the franchise, HALLOWEEN KILLS!

It's time to conclude George A Romero's classic trilogy with this, the darkest day of horror the world has ever known! We discuss the nuclear bunker mentality, toxic masculinity, and where to find the limestone caverns under Florida (hint: nowhere) in this episode on Romero's bleak, unflinching look into the darkness of the human spirit and the zombies that reflect it back at us.

Guess who's back? Back again! Michael's back! Tell a friend! Yup, it's been forty years now since that legendary Halloween night where Michael Myers attempted to kill Laurie Strode, and this time he's... been in Smith's Grove all forty of those years. But thanks to a pair of obnoxious podcasters (hey....) he's out and back in fighting trim, as we dive into 2018's 'Halloween' requel, 'Halloween'!

What happens when you give one of the most critically acclaimed horror directors of all time a blank check, a promise of total creative freedom, and a stack of pulpy old science fiction novels? You get Tobe Hooper's 'Lifeforce', an American home to Hammer Horror that changes directions every twenty minutes and features a sprawling cast, a big-budget plague of space vampires, and a completely nude villain. And if that sounds wild to you... believe me, it's weirder than you think it is.

And so another timeline closes in the Halloween franchise, this time with a very different Laurie Strode coping with her own PTSD and survivor's guilt after shooting Michael Myers in the head. But as you might have guessed, he's not dead, and he's coming back to Haddonfield to deal with his baby sister once and for all in this controversial anti-slasher I cannot wait to talk about!

Hoo boy. I'd like to say you can blame Job Bob Briggs for letting the world know about this obscure little shot-on-camcorder horror movie, I'd like to tell you it's my roommate's fault for gifting this to me for Christmas in the sure and certain knowledge I would do it on the podcast. But the truth is, I like 'Sledge Hammer', faults and all, and I can't wait to tell you about it in every weird and quirky detail!

Time to go back to the beginning, as the spiritual dead end of 2002's 'Halloween: Resurrection' led Dimension Films to remake the original under the creative guidance of... Rob Zombie?! Yes, it's a look at one of the most controversial installments of the franchise, swearing, ultraviolence and all.

Time to dig into a little J-horror, as HPH dives deep into legendary Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa and what many believe to be a masterpiece of the genre. It's a heavy film with some heavy topics, including self-harm and suicide, but if you feel like you can handle it there's also a lot of beauty to this movie.