Media Ghouls

It's the long unawaited sequel of the year this week on Media Ghouls as we present our review of Doctor Sleep! Justin and Ian definitely have a lot to say about Mike Flanagan's adaptation of Stephen King's The Shining sequel. The performances are fantastic but there are a lot of choices that the Ghouls find confusing and/or outright troubling. Ian makes a case for why the film is not scary at all. Justin points out how the story has more in common with the superhero genre than horror.

California, November 2019 - Special podcast squads - Media Ghouls - have orders to review films with passion and shallow attempts at humor. They have orders to insult each other, derailing the pursuit of engaging criticism. This was not called podcasting. It was called retirement.

Take a journey with the Ghouls into one of the most influential science fiction films of all time - Blade Runner.

Happy Halloween! The 2019 Halloween Spooktacular comes to a close this week as our Frankenstein marathon concludes with our review of the Mel Brooks comedy classic, Young Frankenstein! Gene Wilder and friends band together to both pay homage and parody everything we've looked at this October. Justin and Ian actually find a lot more subtle references to every Frankenstein film from the Universal era, including Abbott and Costello! With dozens of quotable lines and expertly crafted visual gags, it's shocking to find how respectful this film is to the originals that inspired it. Truly a tribute to the work of Whale, Karloff, Pierce and everyone else involved with establishing Frankenstein in film!

If you missed out on this month's bonus episode, consider becoming a Patron! You will be granted access to our episode on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein as well as our back catalog of bonus episodes!

The Universal horror cycle sees it's last hurrah this week with our review of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. After a string of monster crossover films offering little more than diminishing returns, Universal shelved Frankenstein until two very successful comedians came along. Bud Abbott and Lou Costello's first monster mash turns out to be one of the best "Frankenstein" films of the classic era. However, it's actually Bela Lugosi's return to Dracula and Lon Chaney Jr's Wolf Man that make this film a memorable classic, complete with an all-out monster battle of a finale. Ian and Justin found that plenty of the laughs and insanity hold up incredibly well!

It's the finale of the original Horror trilogy this week on the 2019 Halloween Spooktacular! Son of Frankenstein was released after a horror hiatus in the film industry, but still saw Boris Karloff return for his final film performance as the Monster. This film saw the introduction of the original Ygor played by the always phenomenal Bela Lugosi. What follows is a battle of wits between Wolf Frankenstein, Ygor, and the inquisitive Inspector Krogh. As you can probably tell, Karloff doesn't get too much to do here, a fact the Justin and Ian found disappointing, but there's still plenty to discuss with this one!

It's time to discuss one of the greatest horror sequels of all time, Bride of Frankenstein. This is the first of many Frankenstein sequels the Ghouls will be covering in the 2019 Halloween Spooktacular, and it will undoubtedly be the best. James Whale returns to direct a stunning film that blends horror, humor, and humanity. Ian goes full English nerd over the history surrounding the original story by Mary Shelley as well as fanboying over the genius of Ernest Thesiger's Doctor Pretorius. Justin likes the inclusion of more stunt dummies. Join us for this Universal horror classic as we continue this year's horror marathon!

The 2019 Media Ghouls Halloween Spooktacular begins this week! It's a month full of classic Frankenstein film reviews starting with 1931's Frankenstein directed by James Whale. This is, to date, the oldest film the Media Ghouls have reviewed, but it holds up incredibly after almost 90 years! Boris Karloff, Jack Pierce, and James Whale came together to bring the most iconic version of Frankenstein's Creature to the screen. Ian and Justin find a lot to love in this pioneer of the horror genre, and we hope you will too!

It's the dawn of a new era on this week's Media Ghouls as we take a look at the first feature length cg animated film, Toy Story! The advent of Pixar would be the beginning of a major shift for Disney in the years to come and it all started here! Ian tells us about his personal familial connection to one of the film's main characters, Fernando hates on Randy Newman, and Emelynn flashes back to her very first microphone. Toy Story and nostalgia go hand in hand, so there's a ton of great (and hilarious) stories on this one!

The first phase of the Media Ghouls Horror Marathon comes to a close as Justin and Ian share their thoughts on IT Chapter Two. Not everything is tied up nicely in this very long finale, but there is plenty to like. Ian wastes no time though decrying the film's weak script, misuse of cg, and tonal dissonance. The broader subject of studio meddling is discussed in addition to their collective confusion on some of the movie's bizarre story choices.

Trigger Warning: The 52:00 - 59:00 minute mark contains discussion of some of the darker themes of the story including references to suicide and sexual abuse.

It's a blast from the past on the Media Ghouls Horror Marathon as Ian and Justin attempt to remember their first experience with IT while reviewing the original 1990 adaptation of the novel. This tv miniseries has some interesting history surrounding it, but have the recent pair of remakes rendered this original movie obsolete? Not quite. There's actually quite a few major differences between this and the newer films, and no amount of lackluster acting could make a horror fan forget Tim Curry's iconic performance.